Brokeback Mountain
Focus Features | Release Date: December 9, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
There's neither coyness nor self-importance in Brokeback Mountain--just close, compassionate observation, deeply committed performances, a bone-deep feeling for hardscrabble Western lives. Few films have captured so acutely the desolation of frustrated, repressed passion. Read full review
100
EmpireStaff (Not credited)
The real revelation here is Heath Ledger as the bruised and sometimes brutal Ennis. His tortured secret is the tragedy and the ecstasy of this powerful and moving film, a smart study of relationships that could but can't and never will be. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Brokeback Mountain has been described as "a gay cowboy movie," which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
This poignant, wise and subtle picture -- which, yes, happens to be the best movie of the year -- should be approached with humble expectations. Lee's approach to this delicate material is suffused with melancholy, metaphors and small, telling touches that favor subtlety over exclamation points and rough-hewn simplicity over grandiloquence. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
An experience as tender and troubling as any you're likely to get - or not likely, if this subject puts you off. Read full review
100
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
So in all the tumult about this film, the eruption of its subject into wide attention and the consequent revelations about cowboys' lives in the past, let us--without forgetting the American sources of the screenplay--acknowledge the anomaly that the director is Chinese. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Brokeback Mountain is that rare thing, a big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center. It's a modern-age Western that turns into a quietly revolutionary love story. Read full review
100
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Ang Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Anne Proulx's 1997 short story in the New Yorker has been masterfully expanded by screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to provide director Lee with his best movie since "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Lee and company handle the particulars of the tale with the requisite meticulousness and exquisite taste that marks all the director's films. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Carries a lot of emotional power. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Brokeback Mountain is a tragedy because these men have found something that many people, of whatever sexual persuasion, never find - true love. And they can't do anything about it. Read full review
100
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Confidently directed by Ang Lee and featuring sensitive and powerful performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and a breathtaking Heath Ledger, this film is determined to involve us in the naturalness and even inevitability of its epic, complicated love story. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Brokeback Mountain aspires to an epic sweep and achieves it, though with singular intimacy and grace.
100
USA TodayMike Clark
It's a heart-wrenching portrayal of unfulfilled Wyoming love, but this time, we don't mean Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur in "Shane." Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Gently unfolds into an epic, heartbreaking love story that's far greater than the sum of its parts. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's by far the most uncompromising and unapologetic gay-themed drama ever made for a wide release by a major Hollywood studio with name stars. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Beautiful, poetic, mournful, at once rich and spare, Brokeback Mountain takes a daring conceit and creates of it an overwhelming work of art that should speak to anyone capable of love. Read full review
90
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
If, in its groundbreaking assault on the mythology of the American West, Brokeback Mountain gets a lot of people into a furious lather, so be it. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Ken Tucker
The remarkable thing director Ang Lee has done is to have made a film that remains firmly in the Western genre while never retreating from its portrayal of a tragic love story. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
This slow and stoic movie, hailed as a gay Western, feels neither gay nor especially Western: it is a study of love under siege. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Brokeback Mountain is at once the gayest and the least gay Hollywood film I've seen, which is another way of saying that Lee has a knack for culling universality from the most specific identities. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
It's possible to point to some weak spots in Brokeback – its seeming multiple endings, the lack of clarity about certain images, some digressions – but there is no movie this year that has moved my heart more than Brokeback Mountain. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
A good and eloquent Wyoming-set love story with a great performance at its heart. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
While Gyllenhaal has playful puppy eyes and energy, his performance as Jack is a blur of mustaches, sideburns and spurs that never achieves the weight of Ledger's. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Brokeback may be too polished for some people, too elegantly dispassionate in its study of choked passion. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
While Gyllenhaal is a competent actor, Ledger - surprisingly enough - is becoming a great one, and the levels of intensity they bring to their roles render this romantically star-crossed relationship emotionally lopsided. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
This ostensible gay Western is marked by a heightened degree of sensitivity and tact, as well as an outstanding performance from Heath Ledger. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
It allows Lee to draw out a theme that's been present in his films from the start: the notion that repressed passion does no one any good. In Brokeback Mountain, it turns vibrant men ghostly. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Isn't for everyone, but for those who are not bothered by the homosexual relationship, it offers a study in yearning, love, and loss. It didn't affect me as deeply as either "The Bridges of Madison County" or "The Remains of the Day," but it evokes some of the same feelings. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Ledger proves what we've suspected all along -- this is his picture, and he steals it brilliantly. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle Smith
This is one of the best serious films about homosexuality ever made, but though it's sad and sobering it's still only a rough draft of a great movie. Read full review
70
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Brokeback Mountain possesses handsome and sympathetic lead players, magnificent scenery, heartbreaking melodrama, righteousness and cultural import. But as a testament to the importance of following one's passion, it's devoid of one crucial thing: passion. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
This is the kind of tasteful tearjerker that's often overrated and smothered with prizes because it flatters our tolerance and sensitivity. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Schickel
For all its brave beginnings and real achievements--its assault on western mythology, its discovery of a subversive sexual honesty in an unexpected locale--Brokeback Mountain finally fails to fully engage our emotions. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The most straightforward love story--and in some ways the straightest--to come out of Hollywood, at least since "Titanic." Read full review
60
SlateDavid Edelstein
Brokeback Mountain could use a little more of it--by which I mean more sweat and other bodily fluids. Ang Lee's formalism is so extreme that it's often laughable, and the sex is depicted as a holy union: Gay love has never been so sacred. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Takes great pains to be a compassionate love story; but the filmmaking itself, self-consciously restrained and desiccated, is inert and inexpressive. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Romanticism fights stoicism to a draw, and the movie grows ever more static, too. Down to the quasi-ambiguous hate-crime finish, Brokeback Mountain comes as close to being a still life as you can get with human characters. Read full review
40
Film ThreatPhil Hall
This much-ballyhooed gay cowboy melodrama is an inert disappointment. Read full review
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