Crash
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: May 6, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
It's the most compelling American movie to come around in a long, long time. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Haggis writes with such directness and such a good ear for everyday speech that the characters seem real and plausible after only a few words. His cast is uniformly strong; the actors sidestep cliches and make their characters particular. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The stunning, must-see drama Crash is proof that words have not lost the ability to shock in our anesthetized society. Read full review
100
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Not just one of the best Hollywood movies about race, but, along with "Collateral," one of the finest portrayals of contemporary Los Angeles life period. Read full review
100
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Hyper-articulate and often breathtakingly intelligent and always brazenly alive. I think it's easily the strongest American film since Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," though it is not for the fainthearted. Read full review
100
Washington PostStephen Hunter
This is the rare American film really about something, and almost all the performances are riveting. Read full review
90
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
What makes Crash so gripping--so terrifying in spots, so moving in others, and even a little funny at times--is how nothing happens as we think it will. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Like Robert Altman's "Short Cuts," it is an all-star fresco, but the stars--none of whom carries the movie--get to play the kind of morally ambivalent, sometimes unlikable parts that big-name actors usually avoid. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Crash fools around with chronology in a Tarantinoesque way that brings its story full circle. You could argue that as events, and people, merge, Haggis' spiky screenplay (cowritten with Bobby Moresco) gets to be, quite simply, too much. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The acting is dynamite, notably by Dillon and Newton in their shocking second encounter. Despite its preachy moments, the film is a knockout. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Flaws are outweighed by Crash's intricate construction and intelligent. Read full review
80
EmpireSimon Braund
A haunting, perceptive and uncompromising examination of controversial subject matter, expertly written and directed by Paul Haggis and characterised by excellent performances from its starry cast. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Ken Tucker
It's a film you won't stop thinking about, arguing over, debating, after the lights come up. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Never reaches the heights of "Short Cuts" or "Magnolia" -- two multi-story films that clearly provided inspiration -- but it's a thoughtful road trip well worth taking. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Unfortunately, the running time is too short for us to get to know, or care about, the characters in a way that would make the film's themes strike a responsive chord. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The result is a film where blisteringly naturalistic drama bumps up against sentimentally arch melodrama (that's the biggest collision in Crash). Haggis showed the same tendency in his script for "Million Dollar Baby," yet there it was better hidden under a simpler narrative. Here, the tendency has gotten magnified right along with his thematic ambitions. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The tense drama eventually becomes off-putting when it becomes clear almost every scene hinges on an unpleasant or ugly racial interaction. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufmann
Ultimately, Crash succeeds in spite of itself. Its color war starts to feel obvious and schematic. Its coincidences and clichés become like a pileup on the 405 freeway, but there it is -- you find yourself rubbernecking and can't manage to look away.
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Crash can't rise from the ashes of its pessimism. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Its characters come straight from the assembly line of screenwriting archetypes, and too often they act in ways that archetypes, rather than human beings, do. You can feel its creator shuttling them here and there on the grid of greater LA, pausing portentously between each move. Read full review
60
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Haggis has made a safe picture. It is familiar enough that it slips easily into our film-watching faculty without any fuss, yet his handling of it--his muscular belief in what he is doing--makes us hope that his next screenplay will be a bit less safe. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Haggis, who wrote the fine adapted screenplay for "Million Dollar Baby," embeds Crash's script so deeply in allegory that every revelation feels manipulative and programmatic, in spite of some terrific individual scenes and performances. Read full review
60
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Full of well-observed supporting riffs, Crash might've accumulated more frisson had it cast a clearer eye on how social tension actually plays. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
New York critics have anointed Crash in advance as the Second Coming, but it's just another over-ambitious first movie. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
A well-intentioned but obvious, often clumsy picture. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Pivots on the characters' racism and xenophobia, playing tricks with our own biases and ultimately justifying an extravagant array of coincidences and surprises. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Any glimpse of emotional honesty comes courtesy of the actors, who manage to do a credible job despite the material. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
Almost certain to polarize audiences, this bit of emotional agitprop plays like a watered-down "Short Cuts" or "Magnolia" with a shrill, one-note message: We're all a little bit racist. Read full review
50
NewsweekDavid Ansen
An ambitious, intense, but overdetermined exploration of the varieties of ethnic intolerance. Read full review
50
PremiereGlenn Kenny
It's too bad that the movie induces eyeball-rolling almost as much as it does armrest-clutching. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
These interlocking stories don't move along as swiftly or as urgently as they should, and much of the dialogue thumps along on square wheels. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
In the end, Crash lacks a cumulative impact. It takes audiences to new places, but we've all been to similar places, and we walk out knowing no more than we did walking in. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
So what kind of a movie is Crash? A frustrating movie: full of heart and devoid of life; crudely manipulative when it tries hardest to be subtle; and profoundly complacent in spite of its intention to unsettle and disturb. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
The result is a hybrid of "Falling Down" and "Short Cuts" without the iconic central character of the former or the latter's clear-eyed humanism. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Concludes in a shower of ashes, which is fitting because this movie is a billowing bonfire of ugly human behavior. Rarely have there been so many characters in need of timeouts, cold showers or house arrests. Read full review
20
SlateDavid Edelstein
It might even have been a landmark film about race relations had its aura of blunt realism not been dispelled by a toxic cloud of dramaturgical pixie dust. Read full review
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