Drive
FilmDistrict | Release Date: September 16, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The PlaylistJames RocchiJul 19, 2013
Drive works as a great demonstration of how, when there's true talent behind the camera, entertainment and art are not enemies but allies. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 15, 2011
Low-key, sleek and sophisticated, Drive provides the visceral pleasures of pulp without sacrificing art. It's cool and smart. Some critics might even call it European. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 15, 2011
Few actors working today could make emotional sense of such a protean character, but Ryan Gosling does so with calm authority. He's a formidable presence in a film that grabs your gaze and won't let go except for moments when you can't help but look away. Read full review
100
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 15, 2011
A brilliant piece of nasty business that races on a B-movie track until it switches to the dizzying fuel of undiluted creativity. Damn, it's good. You can get buzzed just from the fumes coming off this wild thing. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasSep 14, 2011
The film is little more than an exercise in style, but it's dazzling and mythic, a testament to the fundamental appeal of fast cars, dangerous men, and tension that squeezes like a hand to the throat. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 13, 2011
Drive feels like some kind of masterpiece - it's as pure a version of the essentials as you're likely to see. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 4, 2011
Starring Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stuntman/getaway driver, Drive takes the tired heist-gone-bad genre out for a spin, delivering fresh guilty-pleasure thrills in the process. Read full review
95
MovielineStephanie ZacharekSep 4, 2011
Drive not only met my hopes; it charged way over the speed limit, partly because it's an unapologetically commercial picture that defies all the current trends in mainstream action filmmaking. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 4, 2011
Ultra-violent and ultra-stylish, Drive stands out in this year's Cannes competition for its calculated, hard-edged brilliance. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesSep 15, 2011
I can't remember the last time I felt so seduced by a film. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 15, 2011
The look is artfully stylized, influenced by classic film noir; the mood is dark; the performances nuanced; and the story unnervingly exciting. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisSep 15, 2011
The movie has you from its nearly wordless opening sequence. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertSep 14, 2011
The entire film, in fact, seems much more real than the usual action-crime-chase concoctions we've grown tired of. Here is a movie with respect for writing, acting and craft. It has respect for knowledgable moviegoers. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezSep 14, 2011
What ultimately makes Drive so compelling is its characters - sketches given dimension and heft by a superb cast. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 13, 2011
From the beginning, it's clear this is not a standard-order action film. It takes its characters as seriously as its chases, shootouts, and fights. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceySep 9, 2011
Tense car chases, action scenes handled with crisp panache and Canadian actor Ryan Gosling channelling Steve McQueen as an existential wheel man add up to make Drive one of the best arty-action films since Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey." Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnJul 19, 2013
Combing a memorably gritty Ryan Gosling performance with the breakneck tempo of the getaway cars his character handles for hire, Refn churns out a hyperactive love letter to road rage with unapologetic glee. It's a total blast. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevySep 15, 2011
As the film accrues intensity and awakes the demon lurking inside its protagonist, you can see it as something more than a retro-cool crime story. Rather, it's a parable of good and evil and the nature of man. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumSep 14, 2011
Among Gosling's many star-making qualities is his nuanced mastery, since "The Believer," of a facial expression of infinitely adaptable, imperturbable, sustained calm that can read as chilling or ardent, hard or soft, as the role demands. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksJul 19, 2013
Buckle up; it's quite a ride. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierSep 15, 2011
For all the movement in Drive, the quiet, deathly still moments are the ones that count. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensSep 15, 2011
Though both highly stylized and highly stylish, Drive isn't hurting for substance. It has rich, complex characters and a storyline that's both emotionally engaging and almost sickeningly suspenseful. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 15, 2011
So it's a fun, if not exhilarating, ride, one sped along with the help of a wonderfully assembled cast. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaSep 14, 2011
Think of Drive as the cinematic equivalent of riding in a car that projects a fashionably stylish image. Sure, the gas mileage may be terrible and the engine unreliable, but it's such a smooth, good-looking ride that you'll put up with the annoyances. Read full review
80
EmpireAdam SmithSep 9, 2011
Oh alright, it ain't "Shane." But it is about as much shamelessly disreputable, stylish, ultra-violent fun you're going to have at the movies this year. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondSep 4, 2011
Drive dynamically merges a terrific film noir plot with a cool retro look, evoking '60s classics like "Point Blank" and "Bullitt." Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 16, 2011
With its emphasis on relationships and character, Drive can best be described as a thinking man's action film -- or at least, it could if it didn't ultimately feel so oddly slight. As it is, for all of its positives, it functions mostly as a guilty pleasure rather than as a movie that resonates the way, say, "Blue Valentine" does. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickSep 16, 2011
It's fun, but the script, credited to Hossein Amini ("The Wings of the Dove"), is short on characterization and long on plot twists and wisecracks. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubSep 15, 2011
Mainstream audiences will probably be confounded by Drive, while lovers of gritty filmmaking will defend every exaggerated shotgun wound as art. Know which camp you're in before you enter the theater. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsSep 15, 2011
As Refn is riffing on thriller cliches, he gets solid support from the ensemble. Brooks, a comedic standout since the '70s, makes a sympathetic villain, and Gosling stokes the young-Brando comparisons - instead of settling for Richard Gere. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeySep 15, 2011
Plays like an exalted episode of "Miami Vice" or a stealth version of "Shane." Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanSep 15, 2011
Nobody puts the "angst" in "gangster" like a European director. When the director's a Dane, you can count on gloomy, chilly visuals and deliberate pacing. And when the director is Nicolas Winding Refn, who made the "Pusher" series in his native country and "Bronson" in England, you can expect intense, often brutal spurts of violence. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 14, 2011
Buckle up for a bumpy ride but one that a road warrior like McQueen would hitch in a heartbeat. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreSep 14, 2011
They (Refn and Gosling) have collaborated on a car picture that unnerves us with its idling quiet, and then pins our ears back when they stomp the accelerator. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJaime N. ChristleySep 11, 2011
A lot of critics will talk about how the movie is a stripped-down, "pure" genre piece, and there's a lot of truth to that. What may not get as much press is the way stripped-down-ness is an affectation, and always has been. Read full review
70
TimeJessica WinterSep 15, 2011
Refn's mix of grindhouse horror with sweetie-pie sentiment is a recipe mastered by Takeshi Kitano (and, in his own way, David Lynch), but this director's brew is simpler, more direct, less cerebral and less heartfelt. To invest oneself emotionally in the central relationship, or the movie itself, would be akin to investing oneself emotionally in one's car. But when the car looks this good and drives this fast, why not? Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. HobermanSep 13, 2011
Basically, Drive is a song of courtly love and devotion among the automatons. It's a machine, but it works. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 15, 2011
Drive begins extremely well and ends in a muddle of ultraviolence, hypocrisy and stylistic preening, which won't be any sort of deterrent for those who like its looks. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 15, 2011
Drive is a Los Angeles neo-noir, a neon-lit crime story made with lots of visual style. It's a film in love with both traditional noir mythology and ultra-modern violence, a combination that is not ideal. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesSep 15, 2011
Though it easily surpasses most American action flicks, it suffers from the old commercial imperative of making the protagonist a nice guy, something Refn has seldom bothered with in Europe. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 19, 2011
Having delighted in the doominess of Drive, as its journey began, I ended much less joyful than repelled. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 15, 2011
The virtuosity on display is also the director's, of course, and that, for better and for worse, is pretty much the point of Drive, the coolest movie around and therefore the latest proof that cool is never cool enough. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 12, 2011
Every bit as dumb as August's "Conan the Barbarian" but awash in neon-lit nightscapes and existential dread, with killings so graphic that you can't entirely believe what you're gagging at. Read full review
More From This Movie

79 Critic Reviews

8.2 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL