American History X

Release Date: October 30, 1998

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

62	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Jonathan Rosenbaum

The movie can't explain as much as it wants to about what makes (and unmakes) a skinhead, but it carries us a fair distance. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

For all its surface verisimilitude and for all its focus on a problem that couldn't be more current, this film can't manage to feel more than sporadically real. Read full review

Shawn Levy

Feels as true as a documentary, as painful as a blow to the heart.

Todd McCarthy

Jolting, superbly acted film. Read full review

Film.comGemma Files

A true achievement -- no matter who eventually wants to take, or deny, credit for its creation.

Mick LaSalle

As a visit to a world and a way of life most of us will never experience, American History X is vivid, and it feels honest. At the very least, it's not typical. Read full review

Mike Clark

While this movie is sometimes overbaked, it is the first major studio release in a while to engross wall-to-wall. Read full review

Michael O'Sullivan

Trenchant and visceral, American History X may not be perfect, but it's a darn sight better than good. Read full review

Gary Dauphin

A mess of a film. Read full review

Janet Maslin

An inflated yet gut-slugging film. Read full review

Liam Lacey

Excellent in flashes, unintentionally absurd and lead-footed at other moments, the movie stumbles under the weight of its own grandiose intentions. Read full review

Stephen Hunter

A mousy little nothing of a picture. Read full review

James Berardinelli

May be flawed, but it's not easily forgotten. Read full review

Dallas ObserverAndy Klein

Fails dramatically as well as ideologically. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

This is the sort of incendiary role a lot of actors would kill for, yet the shock of Norton's performance isn't its showboat flamboyance. It's that he makes this sadistic junior sociopath rueful and intelligent. Read full review

100

Gene Siskel

A shockingly powerful screed against racism that also manages to be so well performed and directed that it is entertaining as well. [30 October 1998, Friday, p.A]

Joshua Klein

There may be much to like about his movie, but it's all been done before to more challenging degrees of moral ambiguity. That's a pretty fatal flaw. Read full review

Film.comJohn Hartl

Norton's performance, which is every bit as varied as his Oscar-nominated work in Primal Fear, once more demonstrates that he's one of the most remarkable chameleons working in film.

TNT RoughCutChristopher Brandon

What makes this film so powerful is that its unanswered questions force the audience to examine hate and its consequences making American History X one lesson you can't miss.

TV Guide MagazineKen Fox

It's Norton who makes the film such an enlightening experience, and he's mesmerizing. Read full review

David Edelstein

It's a testament to Norton's utter immersion in the role that he can even halfway connect the dots between this fundamentally sweet, brainy kid and the magnetic, white trash monster who'll haunt our minds long after the movie's liberal pieties fade into static. Read full review

Richard Corliss

It's hard to know whom to blame for the film's choppiness, its mixture of rage and sentimentality, the stridency of some of the acting. Read full review

Marc Savlov

A violent, sober cautionary tale, strictly middle-of-the-road when it comes to its much-ballyhooed politics and grimly obvious in its telling. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

Director Tony Kaye may be reaching for opera, but screenwriter David McKenna has set his sights distinctly lower. Read full review

Jami Bernard

Unflinching in its depiction of racism, anti-Semitism, violence and jailhouse politics. Read full review

David Ansen

This material is charged enough without piling on the melodrama and the lip-smacking violence. The movie too often sacrifices reportage for razzle-dazzle. Read full review

Roger Ebert

A series of well-drawn sketches and powerful scenes, in search of an organizing principle. Read full review

Rod Dreher

The picture is smothered by solemn right-mindedness, and hobbled by scripter David McKenna's simplistic, knee-jerk liberal take on suburban white racism.

Film.comNorman Green

Despite a cheap, Hollywood ending and despite Kaye's kooky campaign, X is a killer.

David Sterritt

Norton's high-energy acting is the only element that saves the picture from being a total loss. Read full review

Craig Marine

Such an ambitious, well-acted film that it's easy to overlook its flaws as relatively minor. Read full review

Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard

American History X is a crash course on how to make a message movie that resonates with crackling power.