Moneyball
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: September 23, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 22, 2011
Like a cold beer under a bluebird sky; like a flawless line drive on a warm summer's day; like a long, languorous seventh-inning stretch - Moneyball satisfies. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 22, 2011
Never before, though, have statistics added up to such electrifying entertainment. After the mostly minor-league productions of recent months, this movie, which was directed by Bennett Miller, renews your belief in the power of movies. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 22, 2011
It's hard to imagine anyone but Mr. Pitt in the role. He's relaxed yet edgy and sometimes unsettling. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 22, 2011
Funny, furious, and full of front-office drama. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesSep 22, 2011
The real protagonist of Moneyball, however, is Beane himself, played with great charisma by Brad Pitt. (With this movie and "The Tree of Life" competing against each other, Pitt could wind up cheating himself out of an Oscar this year.) Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 22, 2011
Moneyball is the perfect sports movie for these cash-strapped times of efficiency maximization. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezSep 22, 2011
The movie is an absolute triumph of culturally relevant filmmaking – a film that will thrill and fascinate sport junkies and non-fans alike. If you like baseball, you will love this movie. If you hate baseball, you will still love this movie. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertSep 21, 2011
A smart, intense and moving film that isn't so much about sports as about the war between intuition and statistics. I walked in knowing what the movie was about, but unprepared for its intelligence and depth. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 9, 2011
While a hopelessly awkward-looking Hill provides fish-out-of-water laughs, Pitt gives a genuinely soul-searching performance. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanSep 21, 2011
The supersmart and rousing Moneyball, which may be the best baseball movie since "Bull Durham," is also about talk, but in a coolly heady and original inside-the-front-office way. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 22, 2011
Starring Brad Pitt in top movie star form, it's a film that's impressive and surprising. Read full review
90
TimeRichard CorlissSep 22, 2011
His performance is a canny portrait of leadership - part genius, part crazy guts, part dumb luck - and worthy of moving Pitt up to the playoff round of Oscar finalists for Best Actor. We'd put money on it. Read full review
90
MovielineStephanie ZacharekSep 22, 2011
Now that Pitt no longer has brash youth on his side, he's digging deeper and doing more with less. It's the kind of acting - understated but woven with golden threads of movie-star style - that gives us more to look at rather than less. Read full review
90
Village VoiceRobert WilonskySep 20, 2011
It really happened, it's really corny, and it's really great. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondSep 10, 2011
The surprisingly effective Moneyball has a smart script, solid direction and great performances. Read full review
88
New York PostLou LumenickSep 23, 2011
A crowd-pleasing baseball movie for people - like me - who don't like baseball movies...Probably the finest baseball movie since "Bull Durham". Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 22, 2011
The supporting cast is strong, as is the deft, sharply witty script. Miller directs elegantly, letting the narrative unfold at a deliberate, artful pace. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 22, 2011
Moneyball is a hilarious and provocative change-up, entertaining without feeling the need to swing for the fences. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsSep 22, 2011
Although you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it, Moneyball is one of the best baseball movies imaginable. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanSep 22, 2011
It's tense, strangely funny in a lot of spots and – if you grew up loving old-fashioned, seat-of-the-pants baseball, as I did – the most depressing movie of the year. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 22, 2011
Moneyball is one of the best and most viscerally exciting films of the year. Read full review
88
ObserverRex ReedSep 21, 2011
This is a subtle, elegant and altogether triumphant film about a subject I thought I was tired of, told with an artistry and freshness that is positively thrilling. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreSep 21, 2011
Moneyball is a thinking person's baseball movie, and a baseball fan's thinking movie. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevySep 22, 2011
It's a sports story, yes, because without baseball there's no Beane. But it's far more a tale of a man's triumph over himself and his doubters. And you don't need math to make sense of that. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasSep 21, 2011
Miller directs with intelligence, though not flair, but the script makes up for any flagging energy with crackling Sorkin dialogue and performances that sing with revolutionary fervor. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 10, 2011
Director Bennett Miller has produced a warm and generally agreeable character study about the pratfalls of athletic institutions and the willingness to think outside the box. Read full review
80
EmpireOlly RichardsNov 21, 2011
You don't need to understand anything of baseball to get behind this, a chest-swelling story about second chances and flipping a finger up (even a giant foam one) to The Man. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbySep 26, 2011
Statistics and their alleged true meaning are at the heart of Moneyball, but it's also one of the most soulful of baseball movies - it confronts the anguish of a tough game. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensSep 22, 2011
It's to the director's credit, and Pitt's, that Moneyball is anything but bloodless - in its own quiet, unspectacular way, this movie courses with life. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 22, 2011
A richly detailed and enjoyable American yarn. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierSep 22, 2011
This extraordinary hybrid of a movie lives and breathes the game, yet its achievement is bigger than that. There's a touch of old-fashioned romanticism here, but more crucially there's strategy going on inside Bennett Miller's movie that turns it into something cool and special. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 22, 2011
On some level Moneyball is about loyalty: loyalty to an idea, loyalty to a partnership forged by desperation, loyalty to the values you believe in. Whether that was Lewis' intention in the book, or Beane's intention in taking the risk, doesn't matter. It's the formula Miller came up with for the film, and with the team of Pitt and Hill, it's a winning one. Read full review
80
Time OutStephen GarrettSep 20, 2011
Best of all, filmmaker Bennett Miller (Capote) uses this brainiac sports movie to remind viewers that money is neither the measure of a man nor the ultimate assessment of quality; it's a myopic metric based on past accomplishments rather than future potential. After all, success isn't always about the home runs so much as just getting on base - again, and again, and again. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenSep 22, 2011
Moneyball is a smart, funny, and thoughtful baseball movie. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 23, 2011
Moneyball presents a misleading story line in order to prop up Billy Beane as some kind of would-be miracle worker antihero. In truth, he's just another tobacco-chewing go-getter trying to make sense of a game that, thankfully, has never quite made sense. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenSep 23, 2011
Turning the stately game into something few can resist – a smart and lively comedy of manners. Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 23, 2011
Pitt and Hill are fantastic individually, and hilarious when together -- and on a surprisingly engaging script by Aaron Sorkin ("Social Network") and Steve Zaillian ("Schindler's List"). Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 22, 2011
Moneyball comes to life when elaborating on Beane's unique system of player selection, and the on-field baseball action is at times electrifying, but it trends toward the generic when tailing him away from the stadium. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 19, 2011
The movie doesn't quite come together, but it's full of smart, cynical talk, and it's very entertaining. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttSep 9, 2011
The movie does achieve something nearly impossible: Someone who doesn't even like the sport may care about Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland Athletics. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubSep 22, 2011
Naysayers have been claiming for years that the "Moneyball" book wouldn't work as a movie. But ultimately, it's the cinematic touches that keep this film version from becoming something exceptional. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineBill WeberSep 22, 2011
True to Hollywood's tireless efforts to fit square-peg material into roundish genre niches, this wavering, intermittently smart story of daring to think differently flattens its narrative into formula. Read full review
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