Contagion
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: September 9, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 9, 2011
A chilly, fascinating thriller at odds with itself. Read full review
85
MovielineAlison WillmoreSep 8, 2011
Contagion's restraint is marred by one element - Alan Krumwiede, the San Francisco-based activist blogger played by Jude Law, a conspiracy theorist who wields claims about uncovering the truth like a blunt instrument intended to menace. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevySep 8, 2011
The film is enthralling, even as the tale becomes more and more dire, with scores of millions dead and societal upheaval imminent. The circumstances depicted in Contagion are terrifying, but the power with which the film is made blends the horror, as only the best art can, with beauty. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumSep 8, 2011
Here's a scare-the-crap-out-of-you medical thriller about a viral pandemic that will have the immediate post-screening effect of causing a handwashing stampede. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinOct 17, 2011
A starkly effective ensemble drama which could well do for the sniffles what Jaws did for great whites. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbySep 12, 2011
Contagion is serious, precise, frightening, emotionally enveloping. Read full review
80
SlateForrest WickmanSep 10, 2011
If Contagion is a "horror movie," as Soderbergh has described it, then you can think of it as the most believable zombie movie ever made. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 8, 2011
The rush of A-listers combined with apocalyptic dread creates its own kind of dizzy pleasure: Who's going down next on this Poseidon Adventure? Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesSep 8, 2011
Soderbergh's treatment of the Internet turns out to be the most provocative aspect of Contagion. Like the virus, which destroys any cell it encounters, misinformation spreads rapidly online and tends to cancel out information that might save people. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 8, 2011
Soderbergh's smart, spooky thriller about a thicket of contemporary plagues - a killer virus, rampaging fear, an unscrupulous blogger - is as ruthlessly effective as the malady at its cool, cool center. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 7, 2011
All are good, Damon in particular, but there are so many of them we don't see anyone for very long at one stretch. And all are given at least some bad material to work with before the movie is over. For the most part, they make the best of it. Read full review
80
Village VoiceKarina LongworthSep 6, 2011
If Contagion truly is the first leg of Soderbergh's retirement victory lap, this harrowing film is a potent reminder of what we stand to lose. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondSep 6, 2011
This is Steven Soderbergh at his best delivering a gripping, chilling and powerful movie experience that will have audiences talking (and freaking out). Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 10, 2011
Contagion is the best movie made to date about an epidemic/pandemic. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 10, 2011
The irony of this film is that it's all about how we need to come together to conquer a calamity that pushes us apart. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickSep 9, 2011
Arriving two days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Steven Soderbergh's Contagion is a serious all-star thriller about the rapid worldwide spread of a killer virus that's easily the scariest of the disaster films that have followed the attack. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen ColeSep 8, 2011
Contagion isn't meant to provide delicious roller-coaster chills. Released two days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it's a film meant to scare the bejesus out of us. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 8, 2011
A film for anyone who enjoys an intelligent thriller, but for illness phobes this movie is a special pleasure in that it presses all the right fear buttons even as it validates a very particular vision of reality. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisSep 8, 2011
As a filmmaker Soderbergh requires nothing more of us than a willingness to enjoy ourselves. He had fun. Why shouldn't we? With Contagion, the fun begins with a cough. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 8, 2011
By the time this globe-hopping, movie-star-crammed disaster saga - directed with petrifying efficiency by Steven Soderbergh - comes full circle, you'll never want to touch a subway pole or elevator button or ATM again. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 8, 2011
He's the anti-Michael Bay, the un-Roland Emmerich. No fake-documentary "realism" here; Soderbergh values the silence before the storm, or a hushed two-person encounter in which one or both parties are concealing something. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie OgleSep 8, 2011
Contagion may be the most expensive public-service ad ever filmed, but it's also a surprisingly light-on-its-feet action thriller. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanSep 8, 2011
Though the movie short-changes us emotionally, it delivers a credible, disheartening picture of greed and panic. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsSep 7, 2011
Soderbergh creates an unnerving mosaic from the smaller pieces, a vision of a world that's simultaneously tightly knit, delicately balanced, and prone to breakdown, whether due to disease, bad ideas, or unenlightened self-interest. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertSep 7, 2011
One aspect of the film is befuddling. Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) is a popular blogger with conspiracy theories about the government's ties with drug companies. His concerns are ominous but unfocused. Does he think drug companies encourage viruses? The blogger subplot doesn't interact clearly with the main story lines and functions mostly as an alarming but vague distraction. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 12, 2011
Like much of Soderbergh's recent work, Contagion feels a little sterile, more like a cinematic exercise than something with blood pumping through it. It's certainly high-minded - it might be the most high-minded disaster movie ever made. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 8, 2011
This may not fit any conventional definition of entertainment, but it certainly keeps your eyes on the screen. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissSep 5, 2011
For a good hour, a very good first hour, the film efficiently accumulates small, terrifying incidents and images. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 5, 2011
The pressure cooker plot calls for intense performances all around but first among equals are Winslet and Ehle. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 8, 2011
While potent and well-paced, Contagion doesn't come together as the fearsome bio-thriller it starts out to be. But it may make audiences twitchy about the guy coughing in the next row. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 8, 2011
The film is most riveting in its early scenes, when Soderbergh's digital cameras locate germs everywhere – don't touch those peanuts! Read full review
63
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreSep 7, 2011
There is little urgency to this spiraling disaster. Soderbergh has made a lot of noise this past year about quitting directing and taking up a less collaborative, more solitary pursuit - painting. This is an anti-social painter's movie. Millions are dying, but he doesn't care that much. So why should we? Read full review
63
ObserverRex ReedSep 6, 2011
I found Contagion both flawed and fascinating, but it's not an entertainment. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanSep 9, 2011
Plays less like a conventional medical thriller - think "Outbreak" - than like a dramatic reading of a "Nova" episode, performed by Hollywood's elite. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 4, 2011
Without fully rounded characters, it's hard to care who lives or dies in what amounts to an extended procedural on how disease prevention organizations might respond to such a scenario. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierSep 8, 2011
There's a sense of dread in Contagion, but it never spreads to us. When Day 1 is finally shown, it makes you want to eat better, which isn't the same as saying this is a great movie. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 8, 2011
Contagion is certainly the most realistic portrayal of a global pandemic I've seen, but that doesn't make it the most entertaining, or even all that intellectually interesting. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezSep 7, 2011
A germophobe's worst nightmare, Contagion touches on all the dramas big and small, mostly big, we've come to associate with catastrophes such as this, and does so as if it were hurriedly going down and adapting a list of bullet points, never lingering on any one drama in a particularly meaningful fashion. Read full review
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