To Kill a Mockingbird
Universal Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 1962 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Buy On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Few films have caught the special feel and rhythms of childhood so well, with such uncondescending warmth and humor. And few bring out more powerfully the themes of anti-racism and the virtues and joys of community and family. [20 Apr 2007, p.C5]
100
The Hollywood ReporterJames Powers
To Kill A Mockingbird is a product of American realism, and it is a rare and worthy treasure. Read full review
100
EmpireWilliam Thomas
Storytelling doesn't get much better than this. Read full review
100
VarietyLarry Tubelle
To Kill a Mockingbird is a major film achievement, a significant, captivating and memorable picture that ranks with the best of recent years. Read full review
100
The TelegraphMarc Lee
As Mulligan so deftly demonstrates, the story is in the characters, their failings and fragility, their heroism and nobility of spirit. It's in the depiction of heart-breaking cruelty and heart-warming humanity. It's in the innocence of a child's world overshadowed by the evil that adults do. Read full review
100
TimeStaff (Not Credited)
One of the year's most fetching and affecting pictures. Read full review
100
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
To Kill a Mockingbird is a faithful adaptation of one of the 20th century's most important American works of literature. It is also a masterpiece in its own right. This is one of those rare productions where everything is in place - a superior script, a perfect cast, and a director who has a clear vision and achieves what he sets out to do. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeMarjory Adams
There is not only artistry in the development of the story - there is beauty, sympathy and emotional appeal in almost every scene. Read full review
100
IGNTodd Gilchrist
The film never slips into cheap melodrama, and ultimately offers a remarkable portrait of humanity at its best and worst, not to mention an ideal to which all people should aspire. Read full review
90
The New York TimesBosley Crowther
Their charming enactments of a father and his children in that close relationship that can occur at only one brief period are worth all the footage of the film. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
Peck's icy remove works for once—as a kid's idea of a parent, he's frighteningly effective. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
A hauntingly nostalgic portrayal of childhood mischief set in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. If the film's tone sometimes seems overly righteous, it's offset by a poetic lyricism that is difficult to resist embracing. Read full review
80
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
The film sits somewhere between the bogus virtue of Kramer's The Defiant Ones and the poetry of Laughton's Night of the Hunter, combining racial intolerance with the nightmares of childhood, born out of Kennedy's stand on civil rights and Martin Luther King's marching. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
To Kill a Mockingbird, set in Maycomb, Alabama, in 1932, uses the realities of its time only as a backdrop for the portrait of a brave white liberal. Read full review
60
CineVueLee Cassanell
To Kill a Mockingbird is by no means as irreproachable as our memories would lead us to believe but it’s still a gripping yarn and well worth revisiting. Read full review
60
The New YorkerPauline Kael
The movie is part eerie Southern gothic and part Hollywood self-congratulation for its enlightened racial attitudes.
More From This Movie

88 Critic Reviews

8.6 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 69 Tenet
2 64 Let Him Go
3 58 Come Play
4 57 The Croods: A New Age
5 34 The War with Grandpa
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Instant Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
Best of 2018: Film Awards and Nominations
SEE ALL