The Magnificent Ambersons
RKO Radio Pictures | Release Date: July 10, 1942 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
93
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
For the most part, this is a very close adaptation of Booth Tarkington's underrated novel about the relentless decline of a wealthy midwestern family through the rise of industrialization, though Welles makes the story even more powerful through his extraordinary mise en scene and some of the finest acting to be found in American movies. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderDon Druker
A masterpiece in every way. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
An elegiac saga of the decline and fall of a rich small-town American family, based on a Booth Tarkington novel. Read full review
100
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
With immaculate period reconstruction, and virtuoso acting shot in long, elegant takes, it remains the director's most moving film, despite the artificiality of the sentimental tacked-on ending. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy Vishnevetsky
The Magnificent Ambersons is still masterly. It’s the movie that all other films about families in decline are measured against. Read full review
100
EmpireKim Newman
It's a tragedy that someone else' happy ending is tacked onto his tale, but the film retains enough brilliance to make us glad it's been re-released. Read full review
100
The New YorkerRichard Brody
The film as it stands is a vision of a lost world of graces and traditions that are as alluring as they are confining, as beautiful as they are useless—as well as a portrait of the makers and the victims of modernity. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Welles's second great masterpiece. Read full review
90
The New YorkerPauline Kael
The film wasn’t completed in the form that Welles originally intended, and there are pictorial effects that seem scaled for a much fuller work, but even in this truncated form it’s amazing and memorable. Read full review
90
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The Magnificent Ambersons is a pretty sensational movie. The film language is more fluid and adept than Kane‘s, the expressionist lighting is more rigorously modulated. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleStuart Wade
The Magnificent Ambersons retains a haunted, elegant feel that takes the viewer inside an era Hollywood has largely sidestepped. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
The bold cinematic techniques Welles employed in Citizen Kane are put to even more sophisticated use here. Read full review
80
The New York TimesStaff (Not Credited)
All in all, The Magnificent Ambersons is an exceptionally well-made film, dealing with a subject scarcely worth the attention which has been lavished upon it. Read full review
80
TimeStaff (Not Credited)
Ambersons is not another Citizen Kane, but it is good enough to remove Director Welles for keeps from the novice or one-picture-prodigy class. Read full review
80
The GuardianPhilip French
This is Welles's warmest, most personal film. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It retains the occasional power to mesmerize and amaze. Read full review
50
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
This film hasn't a single moment of contrast; it piles on and on a tale of woe, but without once striking at least a true chord of sentimentality. Read full review
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