Only the Brave
Lionsgate | Release Date: October 20, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 18, 2017
When telling the story of real-life heroes, it’s easy to lapse into clichés. What makes the terrific Only the Brave such a powerful movie is its abject rejection of them. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 18, 2017
Josh Brolin has rarely been better than in this role as the team’s leader, Eric Marsh. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTom RussoOct 18, 2017
The film concerns itself more with beauty shots of the region’s rugged, intimidating vastness than with “Backdraft”-rivaling imagery of combustion as art. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 18, 2017
It plays like a classic military story about soldiers from various walks of life who bond as brothers. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 19, 2017
It’s stark, unadorned drama, and it feels real, reminding us that these are fine actors, giving their all. Read full review
40
EmpireJohn NugentNov 13, 2017
A salt-of-the-earth tale that’ll play well in red states, but offers little spark. Read full review
86
IGNWilliam BibbianiOct 12, 2017
It’s a straightforward celebration of these heroes’ lives, with a few meaningful revelations along the way, but nothing that will completely blow your mind. These are interesting, likable people who led interesting, exciting lives. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnOct 11, 2017
The movie is so cautious about avoiding disaster movie tropes that you can practically sense the resistance to arriving at the tragic finale. The result is a tasteful, well-acted bore, but so out of sync with traditional studio filmmaking it deserves some kudos anyway. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 19, 2017
While Only the Brave is consistently involving and entertaining, that desire to be accurate about a heroic reality proves to be an at times awkward fit with the conventions of this kind of earnest and old-fashioned Hollywood film. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 18, 2017
Moving, majestic and manly, Only the Brave is a nearly perfect rendition of the sort of righteous, heroic entertainment Hollywood routinely built around its best leading men. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczOct 18, 2017
The pacing is slow and deliberate. Director Joseph Kosinski (“Oblivion”) knows that it takes time to build real relationships and feelings. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaOct 26, 2017
Only the Brave feels like a film that would have made sense coming from Peter Berg or Michael Bay, but Kosinski mostly pulls back on the macho cheerleading to find something more objective, and ultimately, deeply emotional. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartOct 19, 2017
Only the Brave is at its best at two extremes: in the middle of the action, as the firefighters do things like improbably light fires to contain bigger fires; and at home in the midst of banter between Eric and his wife Amanda. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonOct 19, 2017
Only the Brave has a respectful and heartfelt regard for its characters, and something more — an unusual sense of their spiritual lives, abetted by the movie’s impressive visual presentation. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 21, 2017
Director Joseph Kosinski, despite being best known for handling the technical difficulties of "TRON: Legacy," shows the ability to push an audience’s buttons. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiOct 19, 2017
Despite its early unevenness, Only the Brave tells its story in a sincere and relatively non-exploitative manner that isn’t overly dominated by visual effects, and the cast does some very good work as well. Read full review
75
Rolling StoneDavid FearOct 19, 2017
The surprise MVP runner-up here is Connelly, despite her tendency to get kind of yell-y during key dramatic moments. Her lonely Amanda is a better written version of a typical long-suffering-spouse. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubOct 18, 2017
Miles Teller as Brendan McDonough is a standout, beginning as a dead-eyed drug user, then gradually turning into a responsible adult. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonOct 11, 2017
Kosinski settles for a simplistic ending, and the film can’t avoid certain narrative predictability, but for all its conventionality, it’s also brave enough to push against those conventions to find the humanity within its heroes. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithOct 18, 2017
Joseph Kosinski's Only the Brave displays a kinship to Howard Hawks’s hard-nosed, old-fashioned pragmatism. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerOct 17, 2017
So squarely old-fashioned that it’s a little jarring to notice that many of the characters have smartphones. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorOct 19, 2017
It's a movie intent on telling us the hotshots were heroes, without sufficiently dramatizing either their professional decisions or their private lives. Read full review
60
The GuardianJordan HoffmanOct 11, 2017
There is a sincere effort to get beneath the facade of what an extremely fit twentysomething firefighter’s life is like. There’s even a possibility that the film’s first act is intentionally distancing so that the later scenes will have a bigger payoff. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyOct 11, 2017
Because of its cast of young men being buff and hormonal and good at their jobs, one could say that Only the Brave is the Top Gun of firefighter movies, the difference being that the new film feels like it's embedded in reality rather than in an aerial wet dream. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAndy WebsterOct 19, 2017
Under its slick, schematic surface, this tale of aspiration and redemption at least offers moments of genuine feeling. Read full review
67
The PlaylistWill AshtonOct 20, 2017
Through its fine performances, considerate direction and character-focused writing, Only the Brave goes above your average biopic to present something that’s poignant and endearingly familiar, letting Kosinski provide that hard-wrought emotional impact lost in his previous films, while still allowing him to showcase his talents for visuals and location. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenOct 18, 2017
Under the direction of Joseph Kosinski (“Oblivion”), a large cast headed by Josh Brolin and Miles Teller bring great vitality and sensitivity to their performances. Read full review
78
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeOct 11, 2017
As the story builds, these characters become richer and more complicated — and the stakes become more deadly — resulting in a movie with a delayed but no less potent dramatic punch. Read full review
60
Time OutZachary ShevichOct 16, 2017
Despite the looming threats on display, Kosinski never imbues his movie with a real sense of danger until it’s too late to take the threat seriously. For all of the movie’s flare, Only the Brave lacks dynamism. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithDec 7, 2017
Backdraft clichés notwithstanding, this is a stirring fact-based tribute to public servants putting it on the line. Read full review
80
UproxxVince ManciniDec 4, 2017
Only The Brave (or, The Granite Mountain Hot Shots, the vastly superior title by which it was originally known), feels like the world’s best two-hour beer and/or pick-up truck commercial, and I mean that as a compliment. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeOct 12, 2017
It’s a gripping and powerfully emotional portrait of yee-haw heroism, pitting a squad of cocky, calendar-purty white dudes against an adversary with no creed or color, just an unquenchable appetite for destruction. Read full review
100
Village VoiceBilge EbiriOct 11, 2017
Only the Brave is a visually splendid, spellbinding, and surreal movie that also happens to be an emotionally shattering, over-the-top ugly-cry for the ages. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 19, 2017
Their homegrown spirit is so appealing, and their history so affecting, that you want to overlook the shortcomings of a dutiful, derivative script, with its several inspirational strands and dearth of essential details. Read full review
88
Washington PostStephanie MerryOct 19, 2017
The acting ensemble has a believable, brotherly chemistry, especially Teller and Taylor Kitsch, playing a troublemaker who initially teases Brendan brutally before the two warm up to each other, forming an adorable bond. Read full review
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