Mystic River
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: October 8, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
To see strong acting like this is exhilarating. In a time of flashy directors who slice and dice their films in a dizzy editing rhythm, it is important to remember that films can look and listen and attentively sympathize with their characters. Directors grow great by subtracting, not adding, and Eastwood does nothing for show, everything for effect. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Mystic River is classic Eastwood, classic noir. If there is still some doubt about whether this one-time macho star is actually a world-class moviemaker, Mystic River should end the argument for good. One of the best American movies of the year, crisply well-crafted and beautifully acted. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
A major American motion picture, an overpowering piece of work that involves some of the most basic human emotions: love, hate, fear, revenge, despair. Directed by Clint Eastwood with absolute confidence and remarkable control. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
Chilling, superbly acted. Read full review
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Moves along its course and overflows at its climax with that indefinable but unmistakable assurance of a master filmmaker who knows just what he wants to say, is in total command of his medium and is in no mood to make any compromises. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
This kind of quiet ambiguity, avoiding easy answers to complex human conflicts, is all too rare in American movies. Read full review
100
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Eastwood's elegantly directed Mystic River, a deeply textured drama in which the sins (or perceived sins) of the past weigh heavily on the present. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Perhaps the greatest, most affecting articulation of the theme Eastwood has been exploring since 1990's "White Hunter Black Heart": how violence--real violence, not movie violence--perpetrated and experienced, can erode and/or obliterate the human soul. Read full review
100
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
The performances are uniformly remarkable. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Eastwood has crafted one of the most powerful American dramas in years. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Eastwood directs Mystic River with an invigorated grace and gravitas. This is a true American beauty of a movie, a tale of men and their bonds told by and for adults who value the old-fashioned Hollywood-studio notion of narrative. Read full review
100
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Mystic River is the rare American movie that aspires to -- and achieves -- the full weight and darkness of tragedy. Read full review
100
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Clint Eastwood pours everything he knows about directing into Mystic River. His film sneaks up, messes with your head and then floors you. You can't shake it. It's that haunting, that hypnotic. Read full review
100
The New YorkerDavid Denby
As close as we are likely to come on the screen to the spirit of Greek tragedy (and closer, I think, than Arthur Miller has come on the stage). The crime of child abuse becomes a curse that determines the pattern of events in the next generation. [13 October 2003, p. 112]
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
A haunted thriller of disturbing power. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Mystic River is hard-boiled beyond toughness: It's so tender the skin falls away from the bone. It's Eastwood's most soulful, and most organic, movie. Read full review
90
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
If Mystic River is just a bit overplayed, a tad too highly pitched, it still resonates with grief and fury and feeling. Read full review
90
VarietyTodd McCarthy
This full-bodied adaptation of Dennis Lehane's involved and involving 2001 bestselling crime novel about old friends in Boston's working-class Irish neighborhood finds Clint Eastwood near the top of his directorial game with a cast of first-rate actors. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Sean Penn is so frighteningly good in this movie that he outdoes even the best of his earlier work. Read full review
90
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
In his best film since "Unforgiven," Eastwood ultimately lets observations on character, community, and the tidal patterns of tragedy shoulder a burden an ordinary murder mystery never could. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Mystic River asks plenty of questions but rarely if ever offers any answers, and certainly no easy ones. If this fine and sorrowful film is what can be expected from our aging cinema icons, here’s to the golden years, dark though they may be. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
So incrementally does Eastwood's film build toward what seems like an inevitable resolution that when it concludes, you're sucker-punched. You haven't been watching a police procedural, but a Greek tragedy. You haven't been watching a drama about the catharsis of vigilantism, but sitting vigil for a community diminished, and permanently damaged, by violence. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Deals with themes Eastwood has often explored before, but never so delicately or with as much sad wisdom: The way in which our past haunts our present, the lasting repercussions of violence and the cruel inexorability of fate. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The white-knuckle center of the movie is Sean Penn, who gives an utterly raw performance as Jimmy, father of the dead girl. It's one of the few times that a parent's grief has felt real on the screen through all its ugly permutations. Read full review
88
USA TodayStaff (Not Credited)
River ranks with the best movies Eastwood has directed: "The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Unforgiven" and "The Bridges of Madison County." But this time, the work is strong without his own on-screen presence -- a significant achievement. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is a powerful tale of crime, guilt, and punishment -- a drama that incorporates elements of whodunit mystery/thrillers and police procedurals with a richly textured three-character play. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
For all its missteps, Mystic River gets the big things right: It turns you inside out with grief, and it builds to an act of vigilante murder that is nearly impossible to endure. Read full review
80
Film ThreatK.J. Doughton
Echoes Eastwood’s previous exploration of true-life violence, “Unforgiven,” by tracing how death and depravity stain one’s life for generations, leaving seeds to take root in each branch of a tainted family tree. Read full review
80
EmpireAlan Morrison
Two things make Eastwood's task easier for him: a superb cast and a cracking source novel. Dennis Lehane's book is one of the very best thrillers of recent years, richer in Boston detail and closer in character study than anything Eastwood manages to bring to the screen. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
This is at bottom a pulp thriller that strains -- sometimes pretentiously, at other times with gutter magnificence -- to reach the level of basic human truths. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The acting throughout is exceptional, rooted in observed realism, but suggestive of more mythical agents at work through the lives of human beings. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The grandest presence here is Eastwood. His directing, like his acting, is minimal: unhurried, spare, unforced, rather somber. Read full review
75
New York PostJonathan Foreman
One of those rare recent films whose emotional power resonates long after you've left the theater. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Where Lehane's novel seethes with emotionally charged subtext, Eastwood's workmanlike direction feels static -- fatally tasteful, embalmed in gravitas -- while his sporadic efforts at dramatic heightening come off as vulgar cliché. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
If he were a more subtle director, it would be a great film; as it is, it's an extremely good one, anchored by the subtly devastating performances of Penn, Robbins and Bacon. The supporting cast is equally good, and blue collar Boston's mean streets take on a beaten-down life of their own. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Arguably Eastwood's most ambitious film since his multi-Oscar winner, "Unforgiven." But it lacks the power and depth of that film's dynamic script by David Webb Peoples. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
An urban crime thriller of considerable gravitas. Read full review
60
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Little more than the distended first half of a twisty, dark "Law & Order" script. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The performances, especially of Penn and Robbins, are so powerful and detailed (down to the Boston accents) that they often persuade one to overlook the narrative contrivances (particularly the incessant crosscutting), the arty trimmings (including Eastwood's own score), and the dubious social philosophy. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Mystic River wants to be a Bruce Springsteen-like anthem of life and death in blue-collar America. It's no more than a doggerel rendition of poetic injustice. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
If this death-obsessed drama is a classic, then give me potboiling life.
30
Film ThreatPhil Hall
The new bad movie from Clint Eastwood which takes Dennis Lehane's best-selling thriller and turns it into an inert mess that clocks in at 137 minutes but feels like 137 hours. Read full review
More From This Movie

84 Critic Reviews

7.2 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL