Richard Jewell
Warner Bros. | Release Date: December 13, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
9
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedDec 18, 2019
Yes, this is a great one, and a magnificent centerpiece performance by an unknown actor named Paul Walter Hauser in the title role is a major reason it is so unforgettable. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 12, 2019
Jewell is not just a man, but a type, and his story is a warning, not just about the excesses of power, but about our own reflexive assumptions. Paul Walter Hauser gives us the soul of a man that deserved respect even before he did something heroic, but one that people might never have noticed. Read full review
90
Film ThreatAlex SavelievNov 21, 2019
Eastwood once again takes a sharp stab at America’s penchant for attacking first, asking questions later. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 12, 2019
Paul Walter Hauser, perhaps best known for his portrayal of another sad-sack wannabe in “I, Tonya,” delivers screen-commanding work as the title character. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyDec 12, 2019
As much as Eastwood finds to condemn in the movie’s designated villains, he does not deliver any comeuppances to them in the end. Which is merciful in the context of fiction, and kind of the mordant point in the context of fact. Read full review
83
The Film StageGlenn Heath Jr.Dec 12, 2019
While Richard Jewell might not be top tier Eastwood, Hauser’s nervy, sweaty performance feels like a culmination for the filmmaker, a beautiful stripping away of the star power afforded by actors like Hanks and Cooper that reveals something deeper about American self-destruction. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattDec 11, 2019
As a filmmaker, Eastwood may not be famed for subtlety, but he does have a way with economy. And he delivers Jewell’s story with almost no unnecessary flourishes; a taut, streamlined drama leavened by crucial doses of empathy. Read full review
80
Little White LiesMark AschFeb 14, 2022
A timely story of broken trust in institutions. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansFeb 2, 2020
There is an elegant, even-handed character study buried within Clint Eastwood’s crisp procedural. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 12, 2019
The key reason Richard Jewell works as well as it does is the perceptive nature of Hauser’s lead performance. His sense of who this character is, how he thinks about himself at his core, leads to scenes with both Rockwell and Bates that are unexpectedly powerful. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 12, 2019
Richard Jewell has much to recommend it. The story is compelling — from hero to reviled heel in no time flat. In a jauntier time it might have been raw material for social satire; in our day it’s a cautionary tale about abuse of power by the press and government alike. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 12, 2019
The shadows are what linger from this flawed, fascinating movie. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 10, 2019
Cheers, too, for the tangy bite Sam Rockwell brings to Jewell’s Libertarian attorney Watson Bryant, a rebel whose methods rile the status quo and sometimes his own client. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyNov 21, 2019
It’s Hauser who carries the film in a rare and unlikely role, that of a presumed loser in life (the man did die just a few years later, at 44) who suffered very unwanted attention — but who, when he needed to, found a way to rise to the occasion. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 13, 2019
By keeping the tone from becoming too somber and generating a degree of sympathy for Jewell, Eastwood has crafted an engaging (albeit fictionalized) account of the triumph of ordinary men over the establishment. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 11, 2019
Hauser, who’s excellent, uses his bulk and heavy-lidded eyes to keep the character a cipher; Eastwood knows we’re judging Jewell as much as the real cops who mock this naïve wannabe behind his back. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 10, 2019
Hauser is just as skilled and invested an actor as any of the more critically certified players alongside him here, including Sam Rockwell as Jewell’s anti-authoritarian lawyer and Kathy Bates as Jewell’s overprotective mother. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRobert DanielsNov 21, 2019
The director’s best asset remains his indelible style. In his films, he usually doesn’t employ much fluff, limiting how often he cuts. Instead, he relies on pans and savvy blocking. That’s imperative in Richard Jewell, a steady biopic whose best upticks arrive through patience. Read full review
75
IndieWireRyan LattanzioNov 21, 2019
The film’s low-key approach to a tragic media scandal feels at once timely and old-fashioned — a character study from another era designed to comment on our own. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 13, 2019
I think Eastwood’s audience is going to eat this movie up, and maybe even turn it into a rallying cry. The legacy of the bombing of Olympic Centennial Park might end up suiting the bomber just fine. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 12, 2019
It’s a good movie. It’s also a flawed one. And in this case more than most, it’s hard to separate those two things. Read full review
70
CNNBrian LowryDec 11, 2019
The film makes a sobering point about the danger of rushing to judgment and trial by media, but undermines that with its ham-handed approach to key parts of the story. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsDec 10, 2019
To Eastwood, Jewell is a hero not just because he saved people’s lives, but also because he was an ordinary and imperfect man who rose to the occasion when the moment demanded it. That’s the story Richard Jewell should be telling, and it succeeds when it sticks to that path. Read full review
70
SlateInkoo KangDec 9, 2019
More diverting is the increasingly desperate forensics the FBI resorts to in order to build a case against Jewell, though it’s not always clear which tactics are simply thorough, now outdated, or flagrantly illegal. But Richard Jewell has so little to say about its time period or how the culture has shifted that it ends up exposing the relative quaintness of its concerns. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonNov 21, 2019
Thankfully, Eastwood’s sure grasp of this inherently compelling story mostly overcomes his sentimental propensities. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeNov 21, 2019
A good story is a good story, and Eastwood knows how to tell a good story. Read full review
67
Original-CinJim SlotekDec 12, 2019
As stark a manifesto against rush-to-judgment as his story is, one can’t help but think how much worse Richard Jewell’s ordeal would have been in a social media-driven world. Read full review
67
ConsequenceBlake GobleDec 12, 2019
As a political or journalistic statement, Richard Jewell does have the unfortunate tendency to come across like a rant. But that does not greatly detract from the film’s rich biography of Jewell: Here’s a man that was perhaps doomed to be part of an inquisition. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyDec 4, 2019
Like so many of the works of Eastwood’s long late period, Jewell offers a story without much of an endpoint, with an uplifting coda that feels almost as jarring as the ending of "American Sniper." But somewhere within its surprisingly pacey two-plus hours is a compelling group portrait of ordinary oddballs in cruel circumstances; it relays Eastwood’s appreciation for individuals over masses better than any speech ever could. Read full review
63
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsJan 3, 2020
Jewell, to its credit, is anchored by one of the more complex heroes in Eastwood’s canon. But I’m still not certain it finds the most cutting or convincing path through this story. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldDec 12, 2019
Eastwood’s very good with actors, and the central trio of Richard Jewell make the film worth watching. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartDec 11, 2019
Like most of Eastwood’s work (with the exception of last year’s disastrous “The 15:17 to Paris”), it’s a tightly paced feature, with strong performances all around. It’s also one of the season’s most politically polarized films. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanDec 10, 2019
Hauser, as Richard, is absolutely superb: nebbishy, so solicitous of authority that he barely bothers to defend himself and seeming, at times, slightly dimwitted. As Watson, Rockwell often steals the spotlight, playing his client’s most ardent defender and, when called for, his most dismayed life coach, as Richard naively finds himself playing into the hands of his enemies again and again. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenDec 9, 2019
Ironically, Clint Eastwood is as condescending of Jewell as the bureaucrats he despises. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 4, 2019
Richard Jewell is a sincere and extremely well-acted irritant from 89-year-old director Clint Eastwood. It’s destined to get under the hides of different moviegoers in radically different ways. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 30, 2020
Hauser is the star and he keeps the film on track: poignant, lonely and vulnerable – maintaining the tricky balance of laugh-at and laugh-with. Read full review
60
CineVueDaniel GreenJan 29, 2020
There are several commendable performances in Richard Jewell – Bates’ among them – that lift an otherwise stolid, workmanlike entry into the filmography of the 89-year-old Eastwood. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerJan 27, 2020
More engrossing than both "Sully" and "The 15:17 To Paris," Richard Jewell is enlivened by Paul Walter Hauser’s breakout performance yet undone by a lack of subtlety and real dramatic wallop. Solid, dependable, very late period Eastwood. Read full review
60
Time OutTomris LafflyDec 10, 2019
Richard Jewell’s greatest feat is the generous emphasis it places on its Forrest Gumpian do-gooder’s complex sense of humanity; if only there were more of that to spread around to the other characters. Read full review
58
UproxxVince ManciniJan 2, 2020
Richard Jewell is ultimately a character assassination that rests on hackneyed narratives and lazy assumptions. Which makes it exactly the kind of thing it thinks it’s railing against. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisDec 11, 2019
It’s Hauser who keeps the movie from tilting over, even though Eastwood and Ray initially seem to patronize the character. The knuckleheaded scene-stealer from "I, Tonya" and "BlacKkKlansman" has the chance here to play a fuller, more rounded character for a change, and he’s unexpectedly up to the task. The performance is an eye-opener. With a little refinement and polish, we may have found our long-awaited Ignatius J. Reilly. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 10, 2019
Richard Jewell is one of those expertly crafted pictures that reminded me how little I care for craftsmanship when a filmmaker’s ugliest impulses are thrumming in the background. Read full review
50
TheWrapRobert AbeleNov 21, 2019
Outside of its major assets, which include “I, Tonya” scene-stealer Paul Walter Hauser’s unapologetically showy performance as Jewell and Sam Rockwell’s sardonic turn as his underdog lawyer, there’s a mystifying lack of clarity to the dramatic impact this retelling is seeking. Read full review
40
VoxAlissa WilkinsonDec 12, 2019
If we learn anything from the story in Richard Jewell, it’s that truth is truth, whether or not it fits your pet narrative. So either the movie fails at understanding its own message, or it flat-out lies. What a disappointing way to undermine your own valid point, in a movie that’s otherwise well-acted and competently filmed. Read full review
38
The Associated PressJake CoyleDec 12, 2019
If Eastwood had extended the sensitivity it shows to Jewell to others, it might have been worth something more. Instead, it becomes just what it preaches against: a hatchet job. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 12, 2019
Eastwood’s made some bad movies in recent years, along with some gems. This is the first film of his I’ve seen since his organutan co-star days that had me embarrassed for him. Read full review
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