Captain Phillips
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: October 11, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
43
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 11, 2013
The piercingly realistic Captain Phillips will exceed your expectations. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 10, 2013
Captain Phillips is such an impressive dramatic achievement that it comes as a shock when it gets even better, during a devastating final scene in which Hanks single-handedly dismantles Hollywood notions of macho heroism in one shattering, virtually wordless sequence. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 10, 2013
Captain Phillips, a movie that insistently closes the distance between us and them, has a vital moral immediacy. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 10, 2013
Captain Phillips is harrowing, inspiring, a must-see piece of moviemaking. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 10, 2013
Even as Greengrass’ signature kinetic style renders us nearly seasick and emotionally spent from the action, it’s the work of Tom Hanks that makes this film unforgettable. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 10, 2013
This is an intense and complicated story, and the film doesn't rush it. It lets it unfold and build, methodically. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanOct 10, 2013
As we bounce over rough seas on the Maersk, we know just what will be lost if the Somalis don’t keep their trembling fingers off their triggers. As the title suggests, this is not a movie about an incident: It’s a movie about a man who stays very real to us. Read full review
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 9, 2013
At this point in his celebrated career, there shouldn't be much new that Hanks can show us. But there is, as the actor reaches deep inside to express the relief of dodging death as I've never seen it played before. He's in shock; we're awed. Read full review
100
EmpireDan JolinOct 8, 2013
Both Greengrass and Hanks are on award-deserving form in a riveting, emotionally complex and hugely intelligent dramatisation of a real-life ordeal. Read full review
100
New York PostLou LumenickSep 30, 2013
It falls to Hanks and his movie-star presence to anchor this ambitious enterprise, and he does some of his most impressive acting without saying a word. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierSep 27, 2013
The most gripping based-on-fact film so far this year. Read full review
100
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 27, 2013
It’s a breathlessly told movie; both meticulous and frenetic, sweat-soaked and methodical. It will take hold and won’t let you go, and it’s one of the most engaging movies of the year. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc MohanOct 8, 2013
The pressure cooker atmosphere builds for almost too long, but when the resolution finally occurs, the sense of relief is that much more palpable. Read full review
90
NPRBob MondelloOct 11, 2013
Hanks and Abdi are so compellingly matched that unlike with most thrillers, it won't be the action climax in Captain Phillips that'll stick with you. It'll be that aftermath, which gets at the emotional toll of terrorism in a way few movies have. Read full review
90
The DissolveKeith PhippsOct 8, 2013
Captain Phillips could have stopped at simply depicting what happened; it’s the steps it takes to examining why it happened that make it extraordinary. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 9, 2013
With Captain Phillips we get a viable thriller whose conclusion is already known, and a character who reacts to circumstances rather than a personal, heroic code. And now, it’s a story preserved in brine. Read full review
89
Film.comDavid EhrlichOct 1, 2013
While this is arguably Greengrass’ best film, it’s almost certainly his most urgent. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 11, 2013
It might have all been another Hollywood-formula flick with American might taking on the alien other. But Greengrass gives Phillips and Muse the time, aboard a covered lifeboat, to discover shared beliefs and fears. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigOct 10, 2013
The climactic rescue by Navy SEALs is riveting. But it's Phillips' devastating after-the-fact shock that leaves the most haunting impression in this ambitious, taut and captivating thriller. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 10, 2013
Despite the obvious mismatches involved, this isn’t a simplistic smackdown. Freighted with weighty issues, Captain Phillips is a film worth debating. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 10, 2013
Captain Phillips manages to expose us to a few things that are unusual in a thriller, including sympathy for the enemy and, in Hanks’s performance, the frailty that is the other side of heroism. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 10, 2013
In Captain Phillips, director Paul Greengrass pulls off the same remarkable feat he accomplished with "United 93": He takes a true story in which the outcome is already known and transforms it into a gripping, wrenching, devastating thriller. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 10, 2013
Director Paul Greengrass creates an aura of urgency so compelling, so rooted in detail, that we temporarily forget what we know and hold our breaths for two-plus hours of tightening suspense. Read full review
88
ObserverRex ReedOct 8, 2013
Mr. Hanks, in yet another in a long line of diverse character studies, does a beautiful job as the voice of reason and logic, trying to inspire bravery and maintain order amid the noise and panic. In the big emotional scenes, as well as the small, nerve-jangling scenes, he is an artist at the top of his skill. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 8, 2013
Captain Phillips works precisely because Hanks isn't a muscle-bound, gun-toting figure (nor does he turn into one during the course of the movie). Placed in an untenable position, he uses guile and intelligence instead of brawn and weapons to enhance his survival chances. Read full review
88
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreOct 8, 2013
The performances and Greengrass’s way with action immerse us and make Captain Phillips a tight, taut,edge of your seat thriller even if you remember the ending. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 11, 2013
Greengrass is an expert hijacker, too. He hijacks our good sense. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanOct 9, 2013
A great many filmmakers — too many — use handheld cameras to evoke a sensation of raw, this is really happening immediacy. But director Paul Greengrass is unique. At a glance, his live-wire, ragged-camera method may seem overly familiar, but the way he employs it, that method is as expressive as the style of a superb novelist. Read full review
80
Total FilmNeil SmithOct 21, 2013
Squeezing every drop of tension from wet-ink recent history, Phillips only falters when making its protagonists mouthpieces in a broader geopolitical debate. Otherwise, it’s full steam ahead to the Oscars. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 9, 2013
Captain Phillips is a voyage well-worth taking. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 9, 2013
This a quasi-war movie set in peacetime; these men are fighting to the death, but not for nation or principle or ideology — or at least, not a conscious ideology: they are caught in larger economic currents. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottOct 8, 2013
The surprise is that Captain Phillips is a surprise in the first place, pitching and rolling tirelessly like the sea on which it is set and, in the process, becoming one of the most enjoyable and well-made movies to hit theaters this year. Read full review
80
The TelegraphDavid GrittenOct 4, 2013
Captain Phillips is a triumph of solid, professional and sometimes inspired film crafts, deserving of all the plaudits that come its way. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 9, 2013
The film rips right along and never relinquishes its grip. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaOct 11, 2013
It's one of the most emotionally draining climaxes of the year. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 10, 2013
It is, however, just about perfect in its wrenching emotion, expressed by an actor clearly up to the challenge of acting in a Paul Greengrass docudrama — which is to say, acting with as little capital-A Acting as possible. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Oct 9, 2013
More often that not, however, Captain Phillips is riveting. Though he remains unfortunately convinced that violently shaking his camera is the best way to achieve visual urgency, Greengrass nevertheless excels at pressure-cooker scenarios. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnSep 6, 2013
It's hard to imagine Captain Phillips in the hands of any other filmmaker -- and Captain Phillips in the hands of Greengrass looks exactly like anyone familiar with his work would expect. It does justice to the material even while playing too conscientiously by the book. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensOct 10, 2013
And then comes that transcendent last scene, in which the man whose side we’ve barely left during this incredible ordeal is suddenly revealed as the best kind of hero, not super at all but ordinary and vulnerable and human. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 10, 2013
The film succeeds on its own terms — an exciting entertainment that makes us feel good about the outcome, and about the reach of American power, rather than its limits. Yet the narrative container is far from full. There isn't enough incident or complexity to sustain the entire length of this elaborately produced star vehicle. Read full review
70
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekOct 8, 2013
Even if Captain Phillips treads into some ideologically rough waters, there's one thing that's hard to find fault with: Hanks gives a performance that goes from good (through the first 124 minutes) to extraordinary (in the last 10). Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 7, 2013
It’s when the Somalis spirit Phillips away in a closed lifeboat that Captain Phillips becomes a great thriller, in part because Barry Ackroyd’s camera is stuck inside with the characters and its jitters finally seem earned. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundSep 29, 2013
It works too hard to keep matters on an even, we're-all-more-alike-than-different keel, which is just one part of its chief problem of forcefully conveying information and intent. Read full review
60
TimeRichard CorlissOct 10, 2013
Hanks has a wonderful scene, late in the film, that shows a strong man collapsing into frailty. It hints at the emotional depth the movie might have plundered. The rest of Captain Phillips must rely for its drive on the relentless mechanical agitation of Henry Jackman’s score. It can’t save an overly muscled docudrama that is more pounding that truly gripping. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 8, 2013
Director Paul Greengrass remains a genius of claustrophobia, yet his better films — "Bloody Sunday," "United 93" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" — all beat with a stronger sense of central identification. He doesn’t have as much to work with this time, and his solution is to slow down the pace. The result is more clarity, but also more monotony. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 7, 2013
Why, then, do we not feel bullied by the result? Partly because the camera, as I say, tells a subtler tale than the dialogue does, and lures us into a grudging respect for the bravado of Muse and his men; but mainly because of Tom Hanks. This most likable of actors deliberately presents us with a character who makes no effort to be liked. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirOct 7, 2013
Not far below the surface Captain Phillips is also an unpleasant and uncomfortable experience, a film that’s not entirely happy with itself. Read full review
50
VarietyScott FoundasSep 6, 2013
There is something too dry and austere about Greengrass and Ray’s telescoped vision, which touches only fleetingly on the pirates’ motives, the suffering of the Somali people and the collateral damage of global capitalism. Read full review
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