Gone with the Wind
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: January 17, 1940 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
97
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A towering landmark of film, quite simply because it tells a good story, and tells it wonderfully well. Read full review
100
EmpireKim Newman
Well, even if it is essentially four hours about a selfish, silly cow, it's impeccably well made, and should be seen by anyone with even a passing interest in romance or movies. Read full review
100
VarietyJohn C. Flinn Sr.
One of the truly great films, destined for record-breaking box office business everywhere. The lavishness of its production, the consummate care and skill which went into its making, the assemblage of its fine cast and expert technical staff combine in presenting a theatrical attraction completely justifying the princely investment of $3,900,000. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw
Some elements seem grotesquely dated, but this restoration of the 1939 classic finds the film as powerful and mad as ever. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
To see Gone With the Wind on a big screen again is to weep for the fearlessness with which Hollywood once believed the sublime was possible. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
The most striking effect of the Technicolor process is its subtlety. The viewer is aware of the gradations of flesh tones in Leigh's face and can see the color rise in her cheeks. The exact color of her eyes is a source of fascination (they are gray-blue with flashes of green). Read full review
100
TimeStaff (Not Credited)
Whatever it was not, Gone With the Wind was a first-rate piece of Americana, and Americans in the mass knew what they wanted before the critics had got through telling them they should not want it. Read full review
100
The New York TimesFrank S. Nugent
Is it the greatest motion picture ever made? Probably not, although it is the greatest motion mural we have seen and the most ambitious film-making venture in Hollywood's spectacular history. Read full review
100
San Francisco ExaminerBarbara Shulgasser
The sexual tension and humorous byplay between Leigh and co-star Clark Gable, in the role of gentleman rogue Rhett Butler, was riveting. And so was Leigh's portrayal of a viper trying to consume the good-hearted Ashley Wilkes, embodied by the fine-boned Hungarian-turned-British actor, Leslie Howard. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
To quote Olivia de Havilland, "Everytime I see it, I find something fresh, some shade of meaning I hadn't noticed before." Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsKate Cameron
The picture is real, full of vitality and of so much human waywardness and nobility of spirit that it tears your heart out in sympathy with its tender and tragic passages and makes you want to shout with joy at its hearty humor. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
The older it gets, and we with it, the more we're able to see in it. As few American films have, Gone With the Wind succeeds both as historical epic and as intimate drama. Read full review
100
Total FilmNeil Smith
Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh create their own sizzle as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in a lavish four-hour epic that juxtaposes scenes of jaw-dropping majesty – that aerial shot of the Confederates’ wounded, for example – with moments of elegant intimacy and playful verbal jousting. Read full review
90
The TelegraphSerena Davies
Overblown and melodramatic, it somehow achieves more than the schmaltz of its parts, thanks to a spirited modern heroine, the spoilt Scarlett O'Hara, and its refusal to give us the neat conclusions you'd expect from a 19th-century saga of "cottonfields and cavaliers." Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
A critic-proof movie if there ever was one: it isn't all that good, but somehow it's great. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Although this epic romantic melodrama is undoubtedly one of the most popular and beloved motion pictures ever to grace the silver screen, it is also arguably the most overrated. Gone with the Wind is a very good movie, perhaps bordering on being great, but its subject matter and running time (which is easily 60 minutes too long) argue against its status as a masterpiece. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonCath Clarke
No one watches Gone with the Wind for historical accuracy. What keeps us coming back is four-hours of epic romance in gorgeous Technicolor. Read full review
60
CineVueJoe Walsh
Rather than confront the guilt related to the sins of the past it paints over them in vivid colours, hoping the viewer will collude in its melodramatic muddying of the water. Read full review
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