Lee Daniels' The Butler
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: August 16, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
17
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The TelegraphJenny McCartneyNov 20, 2013
The Butler might bite off more history than it can chew, but it packs a sustained emotional punch, more than a pinch of wit, and a superb performance from Whitaker as a man burning with passion beneath his immaculate, repressed exterior. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTrevor JohnstonNov 12, 2013
The result isn’t as powerful as it should be. But it’s still cheering to see a film whose moral journey has little to do with the usual Hollywood chestnut of white middle-class consciousness-raising. Read full review
60
EmpireSimon BraundNov 11, 2013
Manipulative and preachy, The Butler is redeemed by a sensitive performance from Forest Whitaker and the undeniable power of the events it depicts. Read full review
60
Total FilmTony HorkinsNov 7, 2013
It may skip so quickly through historic events that it can feel rushed and flimsy, but excellent performances elevate it to serious Oscar contender. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc MohanAug 19, 2013
By trying to inflate one remarkable life story into the chronicle of a generation, Daniels fills what could have been an inspirational, personal saga with a lot of hot air. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 19, 2013
With The Butler, director Lee Daniels has managed to "Gump" the Civil Rights movement. That's not necessarily a bad thing but there are times when so many famous cameos threaten to become a distraction, especially since they're only tangentially germane to the main story. Read full review
60
The New YorkerDavid DenbyAug 19, 2013
The Butler is a lightweight, didactic movie, a kind of well-produced high-school entertainment. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSteven BooneAug 16, 2013
Daniels delights in his actors, all of whom accept the challenge of bringing something true and vibrant to their various sketchily written characters with the enthusiasm of celebrity competition-show contestants. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottAug 16, 2013
Making it even more intriguing is the fact that the whole thing is, extraordinarily, inspired by a true story. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 16, 2013
Ungainly and overly ambitious, The Butler tries to encompass too much history within too narrow a framework. Read full review
55
NPRMark JenkinsAug 16, 2013
Many of the White House scenes are jarringly motley, as Whitaker maintains Gaines' dignity against a series of performances that range from bland (James Marsden's JFK) to cartoonish (Liev Schreiber's LBJ). It comes as a relief when Daniels reduces Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford to TV clips — though that strategy makes the film even more of a stylistic jumble. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyAug 15, 2013
The Butler may be a sanctimonious cartoon, but it points to events in the civil rights struggle that were as grotesque and extraordinary as any fiction can invent. Read full review
50
Washington PostJohn AndersonAug 15, 2013
Even as Cecil lives his life slightly adjacent to history, building a heroic film around him requires herculean effort. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 15, 2013
The Butler is a remarkable, even exhilarating movie not for its inherent Gump-itude but for the social portrait that gimmick allows. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 15, 2013
This is an important film presented as mainstream entertainment. It’s a great American story. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 15, 2013
A nice idea for a movie, but has a mostly silly script and some of the craziest and most laughable casting imaginable. But the movie's main challenge is a simple one: It is very difficult, next to impossible, to build a movie around an inert, inactive character. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensAug 15, 2013
The director’s sometimes absurd bravado — along with Forest Whitaker’s grave, wise performance in the title role — is what gives this outsized and sometimes lumbering film its irrefutable emotional power. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigAug 15, 2013
Authentic emotion competes with manufactured sentiment for the heart of Lee Daniels' The Butler. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 15, 2013
The butler, Cecil Gaines, is a fictional creation, an African-American Forrest Gump who bears special witness to the civil-rights movement while serving on the White House staff under seven presidents. The contrivance is stretched to its breaking point over a running time of 132 minutes; some of the episodes cross a different line from almost plausible to downright silly. That's not the whole story, though. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 15, 2013
Daniels' pulp instincts do lead to vivid sequences...but this is one significant film where less would have been a whole lot more. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 15, 2013
For all its faults - and there are many, from shameless compression of events to milk the drama for all it's worth, to the gimmicky miscasting of several commanders-in-chief (Robin Williams as Eisenhower is especially egregious) - The Butler is an inspiring and important summation of the black struggle. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 15, 2013
It's watching Cecil open his eyes, in Whitaker's reflective, powerfully understated performance, that fills this flawed film with potency and purpose. Striving really does bring its own glory. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsAug 15, 2013
With Whitaker, Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong pulling the strings, The Butler can take a bow. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 15, 2013
A singularly full-hearted and moving film. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezAug 15, 2013
Lee Daniels’ The Butler is creaky and sentimental and schmaltzy. The movie lacks any of the unhinged qualities of Daniels’ previous films (The Paperboy, Precious, Shadowboxer). Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottAug 15, 2013
A brilliantly truthful film on a subject that is usually shrouded in wishful thinking, mythmongering and outright denial. Read full review
83
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanAug 15, 2013
Whitaker’s performance reveals a man who unobtrusively changes white people around him – perhaps without trying or even knowing it – through his demeanor and ability. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 15, 2013
The Butler tells a lot of different stories, some more effectively than others. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 15, 2013
It's rare to wish a movie were an hour or two longer, when it already feels an hour longer than it is. Read full review
40
The DissolveNathan RabinAug 14, 2013
Instead of committing wholeheartedly to telling the story of a single family, Daniels gets distracted trying to tell the story of our nation’s complicated racial history. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergAug 14, 2013
As history, The Butler’s parade of famous moments and figures is superficial to the point of trivialization, reducing years of turmoil to glib sound bites. But in its square, melodramatic way, the movie has a serious point to make. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'HehirAug 14, 2013
Lee Daniels’ The Butler is big, brave, crude and contradictory, very bad in places and very good in others, and every American should see it. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAug 14, 2013
A host of A-list stars have been enlisted to play small roles in a bid for viewer engagement. See Mariah Carey in a blink-or-you’ll-miss-her role as Cecil Gaines’ maltreated mother. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 14, 2013
Make no mistake, Daniels is gunning for awards here; the movie has that sheen, that Big Important Feel. But the performances keep it grounded. Let someone else decide winners and losers. Just enjoy “The Butler” for the sometimes-moving experience it is. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickAug 14, 2013
Although director Lee Daniels dials things down a bit here, subtlety is not what he does. That strategy worked for “Precious’’ but turned his more recent “The Paperboy’’ into a feature-length howler. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreAug 14, 2013
The patchwork story and pacing robs The Butler of the wit and heart that might have made it a companion piece to the far simpler and more powerful “The Help.” Daniels settles for a soapy, preachy American history version of “Downton Abbey.” Read full review
80
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekAug 13, 2013
Daniels is that rare contemporary filmmaker who's not afraid of melodrama. The Butler is so old-school it feels modern: Stylistically, it could have been made 30 years ago, but its time is now. Read full review
64
Film.comLaremy LegelAug 13, 2013
Full of truth that's ultimately diluted by a lack of focus. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 12, 2013
Crudely ­powerful. You can object to the thuggish direction and the script that’s a series of signposts, but not the central idea, which is genuinely illuminating. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineChris CabinAug 11, 2013
With the film, Lee Daniels quietly pushes his talent for hashing out visceral, violent emotions into unexpected dramatic terrain. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichAug 9, 2013
Viewers familiar with Daniels’s idiosyncratically vulgar work might be disappointed that there’s little here that compares to Nicole Kidman loosing a yellow stream on Zac Efron’s jellyfish stings in "The Paperboy" (2012). Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyAug 9, 2013
Inspiring if not inspired, Lee Daniels' The Butler is a sort of Readers' Digest overview of the 20th century American civil rights movement centered on an ordinary individual with an extraordinary perspective. Read full review
40
The GuardianKaty RichAug 9, 2013
A great film about the American civil rights movement is way overdue. The Butler, overwhelmed by flash and good intentions, doesn't even come close. Read full review
58
The PlaylistKimber MyersAug 9, 2013
Lee Daniels’ The Butler could be an important film that comes at a time where race is still a challenging topic for America, but it succeeds less as a film than as a history lesson. Read full review
70
VarietyScott FoundasAug 8, 2013
There’s no denying, though, that Daniels knows how to push an audience’s buttons, and as crudely obvious as The Butler can be...it’s also genuinely rousing. By the end, it’s hard not to feel moved, if also more than a bit manhandled. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnAug 8, 2013
The Butler carries an authenticity that sustains it through its cloying stretches. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyAug 7, 2013
As Cecil, Whitaker is mesmerizing. The actor seems to shrink into his imposing frame, summoning a performance of quiet, bottled-up force. Read full review
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