Jerry Maguire

TriStar Pictures | Release Date: December 13, 1996

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

77	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Owen Gleiberman

Brashly engaging. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Jerry Maguire is loaded with them: bright, funny, tender encounters between characters who seem so winningly warm and real. Read full review

David Ansen

What sets Jerry Maguire above any other romantic comedy this year is Crowe's writing. He captures the venal, high-stakes world of pro sports with deadly wit and an ex-journalist's sense of detail. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

A wholly unexpected film, as heady and surprising in its humor as in its emotional texture. Read full review

Richard Schickel

Altogether wondrous. Read full review

Film.comTom Keogh

Firmly establishes Crowe as a standard-bearer of original thinking in the dispiritingly redundant state of American cinema. Don't miss this one.

Rita Kempley

Joyous redemptive romantic comedy. Read full review

Elizabeth Weitzman

Working from his own original screenplay, Crowe builds a story line full of unexpected twists and digressions. Read full review

Mike Clark

Overstuffed but exuberantly humane. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Magic on celluloid -- fresh, funny, romantic, and upbeat. You'll leave the theater with a smile on your face and perhaps a tear in your eye. Read full review

Mr. ShowbizMichael Atkinson

Lusts for a feel-good ending the material doesn't comfortably provide. One can't help wondering how dismal Jerry and Dorothy's life together will be after the credits roll. Read full review

Film.comSean Means

It seems like nitpicking to say it, but the weakness of Jerry Maguire is that there's too much to it -- too many things happening at once for a viewer to digest. But with a charming cast like this, having too much isn't such a bad thing.

Todd McCarthy

An exceptionally tasty contempo comedic romance. Read full review

Sarah Kerr

A surprisingly fresh didactic comedy that preaches the hollowness of glamour and status and the American cult of winning. Read full review

Film.comRobert Horton

Once again writer-director Cameron Crowe has gotten all the little details just right.

Film.comJohn Hartl

The engine that drives Jerry Maguire is Cruise, giving the kind of performance that all but deconstructs his recent series of glib leading-man roles.

TNT RoughCutGraham Verdon

Any minor annoyances are eclipsed by great performances from the entire cast. Read full review

Desson Thomson

Cruise is at the top of his form, and Gooding makes a brilliant opponent. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

What's fascinating is the depth of humanity Cruise finds within the character of Jerry and also Cruise's generosity toward the other actors in the story -- a generosity that allows all the other performers to shine and create vivid and memorable characters. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

A hip, funny, knowing romantic sports comedy that gets a little strained when it tries to expose its heart. [13 December 1996, Friday, p.A]

Peter Stack

Zellweger has the most interesting new face in film, and she knows how to use silences to say what the heart wants to get across. Read full review

Roger Ebert

There are a couple of moments in Jerry Maguire when you want to hug yourself with delight. Both of those moments involve the actress Renee Zellweger, whose lovability is one of the key elements in a movie that starts out looking cynical and quickly becomes a heartwarmer. Read full review

G. Allen Johnson

Now "Rod Tidwell," with Jerry Maguire as a supporting character, would be a movie to pay to see. Read full review

Rick Groen

Crowe is too much the good employee to spin the yarn properly, to give the picture the very integrity it endorses. He might have made a more convincing movie had he first convinced himself. Read full review

Ann Hornaday

Let's get it out, loud and clear: Jerry Maguire is not a sports movie. It's a stealth chick movie, wrapped in a swaddling of jock stuff so that it gets through guy radar without setting off the missile defenses. Read full review

Dallas ObserverMichael Sragow

An indictment--a prime example of promising material that's been Cruisified. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

The film is all but crushed by Tom Cruise's screen-hogging demand that everything collapse and swoon around him. If the star gave us more of a rest, we might have more of a movie. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineFrank Lovece

A meandering and deeply shallow tale of spiritual redemption. Read full review