Patton

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: February 18, 1970

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

86	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 20 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

The TelegraphRachel Ward

Franklin J Schaffner's superb war epic charts US General George S Patton's role in the Second World War. [06 Jun 2015, p.32]

100

Michael Wilmington

The movie holds up far better than its detractors guessed - splendidly, in fact - not only thanks to Scott's spellbinding acting, but to the epic imagery, Coppola's (and Edmund North's) highly intelligent script and Schaffner's lucid, perfectly controlled direction. Read full review

100

James Berardinelli

Patton remains to this day one of Hollywood's most compelling biographical war pictures. Read full review

100

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not credited)

Patton is a war movie of unusual depth and a landmark in screen biographies. Read full review

100

Mike Clark

Still mesmerizes on the strength of George C. Scott's chew-your-behind performance. [5 Nov. 1999, p.6E]

100

Staff (Not credited)

War is hell, and Patton is one hell of a war picture, perhaps one of the most remarkable of its type ever made. Read full review

Nathan Rabin

A giant Rorschach blot of a film, Patton can be read any number of ways, from a sly satire of gung-ho militarism to an epic glorification of Patton's old-school mentality. Read full review

Kevin Thomas

Written by Francis Coppola and Edmund H. North and directed impeccably by Franklin Schaffner, Patton is extraordinary for its mix of action and deft illumination of an amazingly complex man, brought to proud, robust life unforgettably by George C. Scott. [10 Jul 1988, p.2]

Vincent Canby

A huge, initially ambivalent but finally adoring, Pop portrait of one of the most brilliant and outrageous American military figures of the last one hundred years. Read full review

Roger Ebert

Not a war film so much as the story of a personality who has found the right role to play. Scott's theatricality is electrifying. Read full review

EmpireStaff (Not Credited)

Scott is simply awesome as the one-of-a-kind General George Patton, the brilliant campaigner and man among men renowned for the rage he directed at the berks in authority and the adulation he inspired in his men. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

As a study of power, neither Coppola's script nor Schaffner's direction are precise enough to merit the praise that has been heaped upon them. As an exercise in biography, however, Schaffner and Coppola's character study of General George S Patton is marvellous, especially in its sideways debunking of the American Hero. Read full review

The GuardianAlex von Tunzelmann

It bends a few facts, and occasionally slips towards satire. But, for the most part, this is a remarkably enjoyable - and commendably fair - biopic of an unforgettable character. They don't make many films, or indeed generals, like this any more. Read full review

Andrew Sarris

George C. Scott's full-bodied performance and Franklin Schaffner's chillingly stylized direction will satisfy neither the doves nor the hawks, but it does reverberate with paradoxical impressions. [28 May 1970, p.60]

The Observer (UK)Philip French

Made at the height of the Vietnam war, this remarkable film presents the second world war on an epic scale while painting a warts-and-all portrait of the military genius General George Patton (George C Scott), part mystic, part mad martinet. [28 Sep 2014, p.47]

Dave Kehr

Patton's personality--conveyed with pointed theatrical flair by George C. Scott--is registered in rich tones of grandeur and megalomania, genius and petty sadism. Read full review

Movie NationRoger Moore

It’s the script, started by many hands, crafted into something an actor at his best seething, or in full bellow, could sink his teeth into, that makes this series of movie accidents a “lust for glory” that lasts. Read full review

Staff (Not credited)

George C. Scott's Oscar-winning portrait of the megalomaniacal warrior general is still the glue holding together this blunt study of war as the ultimate human (and dehumanizing) game. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

The movie's vision blurs the man and, incidentally, the just war around him. Fortunately, the general is enacted by George C. Scott, who can sense a character in a gross script the way a sculptor can detect a man in a block of marble. Read full review

Pauline Kael

This movie is both a satirical epic and a square celebration, yet the satire backfires.