Red Beard
Toho Company | Release Date: December 19, 1968 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
90
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
I believe this film should be seen by every medical student. Like Kurosawa's masterpiece, "Ikiru" (1952), it fearlessly regards the meanings of life, and death. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineDan Jardine
The best of Kurosawa’s films are a challenge to look into our greatest fears and at our most terrible afflictions, whether personal or systemic, without turning away. Arguably the best Kurosawa film, Red Beard does not turn away. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklySteve Daly
Remember when ”ER” delivered keen social critiques wrapped in satisfying drama? If you miss that medicine, you need a dose of director Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard, a three-hour soap opera about a 19th-century Japanese clinic. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderDon Druker
As the older doctor, Toshiro Mifune is superb; and though the film has been criticized for its excessive sentimentality by some, it’s a masterful evocation of period and a probing study of the conflict between responsibility and idealism. Read full review
90
The New YorkerMichael Sragow
In Kurosawa’s dynamic yet intimate wide-screen filmmaking, practicality and empathy merge with psychoanalysis and even bits of magic; the young doctor’s near-fatal close encounter with a female serial killer, and a virtuous man’s deathbed confession of a horrifying marital tragedy, are among the sequences building to a genuinely inspirational conclusion. Read full review
90
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
It's hokum lifted to the highest denominator, the banal made into near art by great skill and craftsmanship by the Japanese master. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
As an elegy to a perfect fusion of directorial mastery and an actor’s indomitable screen presence, it’s hard to imagine something more memorable and affecting than Red Beard. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Mifune is as great here as he ever has been. Read full review
80
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
A monumental hospital soap opera which looks exactly as though Kurosawa had taken a long look at Ben Casey and Dr Kildare, and decided that anything they could do he could do better. Read full review
60
The New York TimesHoward Thompson
Red Beard is well meant and well made, no question about it. But it unfolds familiarly and, at 185 minutes, practically forever. Read full review
More From This Movie

90 Critic Reviews

7.9 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