Million Dollar Baby
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: December 15, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
2
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Under Eastwood's painstakingly stripped-down direction -- his filmmaking has become the cinematic equivalent of Hemingway's spare though precise prose -- the story emerges as that rarest of birds, an uplifting tragedy. Read full review
100
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Staying at the top of his game when most of his contemporaries have long since hung up their gloves, Clint Eastwood delivers another knockout punch with Million Dollar Baby. Read full review
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Eastwood takes the audience to raw, profoundly moving places. If you fear strong emotions, this is not for you. But if you want to see Hollywood filmmaking at its most potent, Eastwood has delivered the real deal. Read full review
100
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Has a beautifully modulated sadness that's almost musical. Eastwood once made a movie about Charlie Parker ("Bird"), but this picture has the smoothly melancholic tones of Coleman Hawkins at his greatest. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Achieves a mellowness and melancholy that recalls the jazzy dissonance of director (and here, composer) Eastwood's best work: "The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Bird," "Unforgiven" and "Mystic River." Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Perhaps the director's most touching, most elegiac work yet, Million Dollar Baby is a film that does both the expected and the unexpected, that has the nerve and the will to be as pitiless as it is sentimental. Read full review
100
The New York TimesDana Stevens
With its careful, unassuming naturalism, its visual thrift and its emotional directness, Million Dollar Baby feels at once contemporary and classical, a work of utter mastery that at the same time has nothing in particular to prove. Read full review
100
New York PostLou Lumenick
A spare, exquisitely realized masterpiece about faith, redemption and boxing that beautifully illustrates his longtime philosophy that "less is more." Read full review
100
USA TodayMike Clark
As good as "Unforgiven." Or, to put it another way, as good as any movie Eastwood has ever directed. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
A remarkably appealing success story full of heart and humor and poignancy, with Swank as winning as she’s ever been. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true...The best film of the year. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
It's an ideal match, and Eastwood deserves accolades as both director and star of this powerfully made picture. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Haggis's dialogue is worthy of Hemingway, and the three leads border on perfection. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Ages well in memory because it gradually seems to mean more. Its meaning can't be summed up in a sentence, but it has to do with a view of life as inexpressibly sad and yet always right. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
One of the many pleasures of this beautifully composed, measured movie is how it reminds you of the power of pure storytelling -- an art that's too often overlooked in contemporary films in the rush for sensation and excitement. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
This heartbreaking film, with its rich performances and simple eloquence, lays claim to greatness. Read full review
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's an emotionally gripping, daringly genre-twisting, consummately crafted piece of filmmaking. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy Burr
More than "Unforgiven," more than "Mystic River," it is Clint Eastwood's autumnal masterpiece. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
Unlike other filmmakers in the autumn or winter of their careers, Eastwood doesn't seem content to rest on his laurels and give his audiences the tried and the true. For that reason, among many others, he and Million Dollar Baby are true champions. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Reveals the drama and degredation so powerfully that it ranks among the all-time heavyweights of sports movies. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
A truly powerful, masterful work. Read full review
100
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Eastwood tells the story at a pace well under the Hollywood speed limit, tosses in details so beguiling they seem about to sprout into motion pictures of their own and bathes his subjects in shadows as lovely as those in any Rembrandt. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
A movie of tough excitement and surprise, even grace. Read full review
90
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
Baby may not be quite as compelling as Mystic River or Unforgiven, but there's something so stirring, and disquieting, too, in his quest that we cannot help but pay close attention to him. In the middle of his long career's third act, he's still searching for the secrets in things with striking resolve. You certainly can't ask more than that of any 75-year-old ex-gunslinger. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
So wonderfully antiquated, so blissfully free of postmodern cleverness. Read full review
90
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
The heart of Million Dollar Baby lies in the core relationships among Frankie, Maggie and Scrap, friendships so pure, so genuine, so authentic that it takes actors of Eastwood's, Swank's and Freeman's caliber to sell them in this otherwise cynical world. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The knockout punch comes from Eastwood. His stripped-down performance -- as powerful as anything he's ever done -- has a rugged, haunting beauty. The same goes for the movie. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It is a rich and challenging motion picture that both affirms life and emphasizes its fragility. Eastwood touches our hearts and energizes our minds without resorting to overt manipulation. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Million Dollar Baby is a knockout. It is Clint Eastwood's baby in every respect — a movie that approaches the level of great boxing films, like "Raging Bull," by using sport as a metaphor for human nature. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
All the same, Eastwood's point of view has been seasoned enough to locate poignancy and respect for his protagonists where you least expect -- saying it's an old man's movie is a serious compliment. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Though conventional in many respects, it feels like no other boxing film ever made, due largely to Eastwood's unmistakable presence on both sides of the camera. Read full review
80
EmpireColin Kennedy
To steal from Ali, this one floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
With his trademark spare, unfussy direction and jumping into the story approach, Eastwood subtly establishes the themes of faith, loss and love and then he raises the drama to a different level. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Eastwood's slow-building story of loss and deliverance is a fine, understated piece of storytelling that earns every emotional body blow it lands. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It is thoughtful, unfashionable, measured, mostly honest, sometimes clumsy or remote, often exciting, occasionally moving and eventually surprising. It's correct.
60
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
If we can watch this picture at all, it is because this universally admired person (Eastwood) is in it. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
In a boxing soap-opera way, Eastwood is trying to do for himself as a performer what Sergio Leone did for him in a spaghetti-western way: douse his rough-hewn banality with reflected emotional coloration. Read full review
20
SalonCharles Taylor
A compendium of every cliché from every bad boxing melodrama ever made, Million Dollar Baby tries to transcend its cornball overfamiliarity with the qualities that have long characterized Eastwood's direction -- it's solemn, inflated and dull. Read full review
20
SlateDavid Edelstein
It's impressive, in the sense that a sucker-punch impresses itself on your skull. Read full review
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