Elvis & Nixon
Bleecker Street Media | Release Date: April 22, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
16
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 21, 2016
For the bulk of the ride, it’s a wickedly funny interpretation of the one of the great confounding moments in American pop culture and political history. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattApr 22, 2016
As a surreal slice of history served up nearly half a century later, it feels oddly satisfying: A reminder not just of simpler times, but of all the other wild untold stories we may never know, just because no camera was there to capture them. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinApr 20, 2016
A thoroughly charming comedy that bobs on a sea of incongruities. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckApr 18, 2016
Featuring hilarious yet acutely observed performances by Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey as the titular characters, Elvis & Nixon, receiving its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, is a hoot. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 20, 2016
Helping Elvis & Nixon remain in conjectural mode is the fact that neither actor – Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as Nixon – looks particularly like the character he is playing. Yet both actors make their roles believable through apt choices in body language and vocalization. Read full review
76
The VergeTasha RobinsonApr 26, 2016
Elvis & Nixon is at its best when it sticks to what-if whimsy and the enjoyable fantasy of worlds colliding, with all the outlandish possibilities that crossover stories suggest. Read full review
75
The Film StageNathan BartlebaughApr 27, 2016
Johnson structures the movie early on as if it’s the out-dated kooky B-movie version of itself and even when the two heavyweights get down to it, she refuses to frame the film in lofty terms. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaApr 22, 2016
Blending facts, anecdotes, and no little conjecture, Elvis & Nixon finally finds the two American icons face to face, sharing M&M's and Dr Peppers. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 22, 2016
Given the high quotient of hypotheticals in the story line, Nixon & Elvis can’t really be said to add to the historical record, but it’s an entertaining, deadpan jape that, with a bit of tweaking, could probably work as a stage play. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanApr 21, 2016
Elvis & Nixon offers an entertaining meditation on the how and the why leading up to this famously strange photo. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 21, 2016
It's a small film, perhaps less ambitious or probing (even in a comic vein) than it might've been. But it's a good one, and the actors go to town without turning Elvis & Nixon into a chance meeting between an Elvis impersonator and Rich Little. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickApr 21, 2016
Elvis & Nixon is the funniest Nixon movie since 1999’s forgotten “Dick.” That comedy was a Watergate-era fantasy, but as incredible as it seems, this one is based more or less directly on fact. A photograph of the meeting is the most requested image at the National Archives. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 19, 2016
And so it does in the deft and delightful Elvis & Nixon, a short, quick and clever recreation of the how that came to pass and an imagined version of the conversation that could have taken place. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 21, 2016
It's a weird movie. In a good way. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeApr 18, 2016
While its sense of humor takes some gettin’ used to, the sheer spaciness of Liza Johnson’s stranger-than-fiction political satire ultimately proves its greatest asset. Read full review
67
ConsequenceNico LangApr 21, 2016
Elvis & Nixon will not go down as the best movie you’ll see this year, but it very well may be among the most purely entertaining. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldApr 21, 2016
There’s much pleasure to be had in Elvis & Nixon from its two lead performances. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 21, 2016
Elvis & Nixon strains itself to bring the title duo together and then relaxes — finally — while Spacey and Shannon perform the actor’s equivalent of a waltz. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 21, 2016
It ain't fact, but it is damn entertaining fiction. Read full review
60
EmpireOlly RichardsJun 20, 2016
There’s not a lot of consequence to this bizarre meeting, or really the film, but as a character study of two men alone at the top, it’s both very funny and quietly astute. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 22, 2016
There’s fascination in watching the always-intense Michael Shannon burrow into the singer’s interiority—he plays Elvis like a bored icon who’s outlived his usefulness. Spacey’s Nixon is a variation on his devious Frank Underwood, not in itself a bad thing. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 21, 2016
It’s a reasonably clever contrivance built around a pair of droll, skin-deep performances that are smart and entertaining, yet oddly lacking in intensity. Read full review
60
The GuardianNigel M SmithApr 18, 2016
When you have two of today’s best working actors acting on a high-wire to do justice to two of the most recognisable figures of the 20th century, it’s best to keep the focus solely located on them. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerApr 20, 2016
As much as the movie sidesteps biographical conventions with its narrow frame and playful tone, it can’t avoid a separate cliché that plagues this sort of material: Elvis & Nixon is basically a diverting TV movie given a theatrical release. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 21, 2016
Despite Mr. Shannon and Mr. Spacey, who appear to be having a fine time working off each other, the meeting is anticlimactic. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 21, 2016
Elvis & Nixon makes for a diverting, often absurdly funny double portrait of two men engulfed by changes they can’t fathom, much less accept. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 21, 2016
Shannon is worth seeing, and so is Spacey — hunched over, doing a funny impression of Nixon’s voice and body language. But this time the actors are better than the material. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzApr 20, 2016
Only fitfully entertaining or illuminating. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenApr 20, 2016
The film is taken with comfy gags that celebrate these men's ownership of pop culture, filtering them through a lens of unrevealing caricature. Read full review
42
The PlaylistRuss FischerApr 21, 2016
The actors test one another like boxers perpetually about to throw the first punch, but all the buildup around their encounter is flabby and forgettable. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJun 23, 2016
Perhaps this meeting of suspicious minds really was an unsung crux of modern American history, but Elvis & Nixon feels like a trifle about a trifle. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleApr 21, 2016
Elvis & Nixon meanders its way into the big encounter with a tone too wacky and cutesy to whet our appetite for strangeness. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlApr 20, 2016
Outside of Shannon's performance, Elvis & Nixon is enough to make you long for the nuance of Kissin' Cousins. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsGersh KuntzmanApr 20, 2016
Johnson’s film is filled with tedium instead of delirium. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonApr 18, 2016
The filmmakers rarely go beyond being pleased with how strange this convergence of pop-culture and political figures must have been, and so Elvis & Nixon comes across as both thimble-deep and distractingly self-satisfied. Read full review
35
TheWrapSam FragosoApr 18, 2016
Inoffensive as it is inconsequential, this first foray into big-budget filmmaking from director Liza Johnson (“Hateship Loveship”) is a painful disappointment from start to finish, a frustratingly safe and unimaginative effort that squanders the potential of its story. Read full review
33
IndieWireDavid EhrlichApr 18, 2016
Told with the gravitas of a comedy sketch and the edginess of the funny pages, Elvis & Nixon at least has the good sense to appreciate that its namesakes were larger than life, each walled off from the world in their own way. Read full review
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