An Affair to Remember

Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: July 19, 1957

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

71	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Michael Wilmington

A perfectly balanced blend of romance in exotic settings (shipboard, in Italy) and the trauma-drama of accident and heartbreak. [08 Aug 1999, p.23]

Fernando F. Croce

A remake by Leo McCarey of his own 1939 classic Love Affair, the film progresses as a graceful switch from romantic comedy to weepie melodrama, reflecting the director’s deep-rooted belief in the intricate bond between laughter and tears. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Leo McCarey’s 1957 remake of his 1939 masterpiece Love Affair, coscripted with Delmer Daves and shot in color and ‘Scope, is his last great film—a tearjerker with comic interludes and cosmic undertones that fully earns both its tears and its laughs, despite some kitschy notions about art and a couple of truly dreadful sequences. Read full review

The GuardianJane Graham

For those of us who like to immerse ourselves in sense-assaulting love stories, this 1957 Leo McCarey classic is as good as it gets. Read full review

Crosby Day

Director Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember (1957) was - and always will be - a poignant romantic fairy tale elevated above the typical studio tear-jerker. This is because of the performances turned in by Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, and outstanding production values. [17 Apr 1994, p.71]

Staff (Not Credited)

Adding comedy lines, music, color and CinemaScope, Jerry Wald and Leo McCarey turn this remake of the 1939 Love Affair into a winning film that is alternately funny and tenderly sentimental. Read full review

Susan King

The film, directed by Leo McCarey, is almost a shot-by-shot remake of his 1939 hit "Love Affair," with Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, but this version sparkles thanks to Grant and Kerr's crackling chemistry. [15 Jan 2008, p.E11]

Donna Bowman

The principals are in such fine form, underplaying against their stagy backdrops, and the tragic turn of the plot is so gripping, that the movie succeeds in spite of its white-elephant pedigree. Read full review

David Sterritt

The mid-'50s version is slow going most of the way, but there's no beating Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the charm department, and director Leo McCarey comes up with some amusing moments that are more diverting than anything in Beatty's updated edition. [13 Oct 1994, p.10]

Almar Haflidason

Branded by some as nothing more than a glorified soap opera, "An Affair to Remember" isn't afraid to employ some rather obvious dramatic devices, but it's hard not to become swept-up into a romance that seems doomed to failure. Read full review

EmpireIan Nathan

One of the most legendary tear-jerkers of the 20th century. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

This film is one of the most effective tearjerkers ever made and is given sophistication and style by its consummate lead actors. Read full review

Bosley Crowther

Mr. McCarey's direction is unpropitiously and unaccountably slow. Could it be, too, that a brand of make-believe that was tolerable eighteen years ago, before color and CinemaScope and other intrusions, is just a little discomforting now? Read full review

Richard Brody

McCarey plays the shipboard courtship for generous and tender laughs—the wryly staged first kiss is one of the sweetest in all cinema—but the comedy that follows on dry land is mostly inadvertent. Read full review