Frost/Nixon
Universal Pictures | Release Date: December 5, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It's hard to imagine how a film built around one-on-one interviews could be entertaining, but Frost/Nixon could not be more enthralling. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazinePerry Seibert
The craftsmanship, acting, and history lesson all make it among the most satisfying films of Ron Howard's career. Read full review
100
PremiereStaff (Not credited)
A totally mesmerizing battle of the wills between the occasionally charming yet wily Nixon and the increasingly desperate Frost. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Frank Langella and Michael Sheen do not attempt to mimic their characters, but to embody them. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Morgan finds the right elements of action and character through which to make history leap off the page. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Langella has always been a cerebral actor, one who never gives away all he's thinking. What comes through in this portrayal is how smart Nixon was, whether he's cunningly probing Frost's weaknesses or pitching himself to TV viewers as an avuncular, misunderstood Cold Warrior. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Surges with an energy and visual verve that improve the play and enhance the themes of dramatist Peter Morgan's script. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
In a masterful performance, Langella highlights Nixon's oily charm and guile. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The result is involving, engrossing cinema -- more thrilling, in fact, than Howard's "The Da Vinci Code" -- filmmaking of a type rarely seen anymore and sorely missed. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
What Ron Howard gets, to a degree that's astonishing in a two-hour film, is the density and complexity, as well as the generous entertainment quotient, of Peter Morgan's screenplay. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Howard and Morgan have transformed this story into something more than an embellished re-telling of recent history. They have shaped a tragedy that is almost Shakespearean in force. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Director Ron Howard has turned Peter Morgan's stage success into a grabber of a movie laced with tension, stinging wit and potent human drama. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
Sheen, who is also reprising his stage role and appeared as Tony Blair in the Morgan-written "The Queen," is highly effective as Frost - though the stakes for Frost are nowhere near as interesting as those for Nixon. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Ron Howard has made his best movie with Frost/Nixon, an electric political drama with a skin-prickling immediacy. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Throughout, it's clouded -- for me at least -- by a nagging sense that it's straining too hard to build the media clash into more of an historic event than it was. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
The result is a totally absorbing and entertaining film, one of the best historical dramas from Hollywood in many years. Read full review
80
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Frost/Nixon works even better on screen. Director Ron Howard and Morgan, adapting his own play, have both opened up the tale and, with the power of close-ups, made this duel of wits even more intimate and suspenseful. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Offers considerable insight into the Nixon mystery, without solving it; the movie is fully absorbing and even, when Nixon falls into a drunken, resentful rage, exciting, but I can't escape the feeling that it carries about it an aura of momentousness that isn't warranted by the events. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Frost/Nixon's main attraction is neither its topicality nor its historical value, but Langella's re-creation of his Tony-winning performance. Read full review
80
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Howard has made a picture for grown-ups, a well-constructed entertainment that neither talks down to its audience nor congratulates it just for showing up. Read full review
80
NPRBob Mondello
A case is being made here that it wasn't really Frost who did Nixon in: It was Nixon's old nemesis, the TV camera. Read full review
80
Washington PostPhilip Kennicott
Neither the title nor the subject matter prepares you for the pure fun of Frost/Nixon. Read full review
80
EmpireIan Nathan
Stirring stuff that works thrillingly as drama, and should make Sheen a star, even if it compromises on historical insight. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Ultimately, Frost/Nixon may be stuck in time – but, oh, what a time it was. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Shakespeare would have delighted in the chapter, especially in the antagonist, but not at the expense of the longer and darker and still-unfinished book. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Never entirely escapes its theatrical origins, and, by framing the story so pugilistically, the filmmakers don't bring out the full richness in this material. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Frost/Nixon is not the epic gladiatorial face-off, the ricocheting verbal shoot-out that writer Morgan and filmmaker Howard imagined. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Frost/Nixon is wholly absorbing. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Less a political movie than a boxing film without the gloves. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Frank Langella's meticulous performance will generate the sort of attention that will attract serious filmgoers. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Stories of lost crowns lend themselves to drama, but not necessarily audience-pleasing entertainments, which may explain why Frost/Nixon registers as such a soothing, agreeably amusing experience, more palliative than purgative. Read full review
70
SlateDana Stevens
Morgan's compact, satisfying drama presents presidential interviewing as a gladiatorial event. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss
For closeup conflict and emotional kick, the Frost/Nixon movie tops the play. But neither can match the tension and weird poignancy of the original interviews -- reality TV of the highest, queasiest order. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Ron Howard directed, with outstanding support from Kevin Bacon as Jack Brennan, Nixon's fierce chief of staff. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Despite a moving, canny incarnation of the man by Frank Langella, despite a slickly entertaining coffee-table production as only Ron Howard knows how, the movie feels cooked up. Read full review
60
Film ThreatScott Mendelson
Fails to add anything of substance to the history that it portrays. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Unsatisfying even if, like me, you're a lifelong aficionado of Nixon-bashing. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Despite the great care and research that went into the movie, Frost/Nixon pales in comparison to Oliver Stone's "Nixon" when it comes to humanizing the infamous leader. Read full review
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