LBJ
Electric Entertainment | Release Date: November 3, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ObserverRex ReedNov 7, 2017
Woody Harrelson in the title role has enough spice to keep the viewer alert and attentive. That’s more than I can say about most of the junk that greets the year-end 2017 holiday season. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireNov 3, 2017
LBJ captures a tumultuous political era and one of its most profanely colorful leaders with a good deal of insight and emotional torque. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartNov 3, 2017
As a primer on one of history’s less flashy leaders, it’s a worthwhile watch — mostly for fellow Texan Woody Harrelson’s committed performance behind those prosthetic ears. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 2, 2017
It’s a well-calibrated performance, with Harrelson convincingly conveying how Lyndon Johnson felt the weight of the world on his shoulders and took on that challenge in mostly admirable ways. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 2, 2017
LBJ, Rob Reiner's film, benefits greatly from an absolutely all-in performance by Woody Harrelson as the former president. But it also benefits from the current president, or at least the current administration. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerNov 3, 2017
Reiner is no Oliver Stone, but he does stir things up by presenting Bobby Kennedy in the villain's role as a serious jerk and crafty underminer. Read full review
63
Washington PostSusan WloszczynaNov 2, 2017
I suspect that none of these actors had as much fun bringing to life the cagey and colorful political vulgarian as his fellow Texan, Woody Harrelson, seems to be having in LBJ, crudely and rudely drawling his lines behind a wall of latex makeup, plus-size prosthetic ears and horn-rimmed glasses that obscure his own facial features. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 1, 2017
The height and the way he used it should have been addressed. The film, like the player cast as its lead, is too short to do the subject justice. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenNov 2, 2017
LBJ would have benefited from a more distinctive voice. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 2, 2017
It’s almost sadistic to cast Jenkins, the actor who most resembles Johnson, in a supporting role in LBJ. His scenes with Harrelson suggest a man talking to his own Halloween-mask likeness. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 2, 2017
Directed by Rob Reiner from Joey Hartstone’s script, LBJ is a frustratingly underdeveloped vehicle for Mr. Harrelson’s talents as well as an unfortunate missed opportunity. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 2, 2017
It wouldn’t raise questions about Harrelson’s prostheses and makeup, for starters, if the drama carried more urgency. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 2, 2017
There is something of a Halloween costume about Woody Harrelson’s appearance in the film. He looks as if frozen midway into some morphing process between himself and Lyndon Johnson, a process that, by pure chance, happened to stop at the precise moment he began to look comical. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlNov 1, 2017
LBJ slips from an examination of a sometimes admirable leader into a hagiographic daydream, a fantasy of a father figure to save us all. That’s a matter of Reiner’s politics, of course, but even more so a matter of his instincts as a popular filmmaker: He’s offering us an American presidency to escape to. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 1, 2017
It’s an entertaining piece of Hollywood waxworks if you don’t set your expectations very high and it’s probably the best movie Rob Reiner has directed in more than a decade. (This only sounds like a compliment.) Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisNov 1, 2017
No wonder the movie feels something like a retread: It gets you there, but the ride is neither nowhere as smooth, nor nearly as compelling. Read full review
50
ConsequenceRandall ColburnOct 31, 2017
Though Harrelson’s performance is nothing if not memorable, it lacks dynamism. His tone and cadence, though booming, becomes familiar as the film barrels on, and the plasticine nature of his prosthetics is distracting.... It’s a good performance, but not a layered one. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineOleg IvanovOct 31, 2017
By pairing down Lyndon Baines Johnson’s multifarious life and career to this one piece of legislation, the film fails to do justice to both the man and the fraught times he so fundamentally influenced. Read full review
45
TheWrapRobert AbeleNov 2, 2017
Rob Reiner’s LBJ is an often pedestrian, sometimes punchy, well-acted biopic that gives the mightily capable Woody Harrelson the reins of the country’s 36th commander in chief. Read full review
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