Shakespeare in Love
Buena Vista Television | Release Date: December 11, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
I was carried along by the wit, the energy and a surprising sweetness. Read full review
100
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
With most historical films the informed viewer scrutinizes in order to cluck at errors. (There are books full of such cluckings.) With Shakespeare in Love, the more one knows, the more one can enjoy the liberties taken. [Jan. 4, 1999]
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The richest and most satisfying romantic movie of the year. It's really about two great loves at once -- the love of life and of art -- and the way that Shakespeare, like no writer before him, transformed the one into the other. Read full review
100
TimeRichard Corliss
The true, rare glamour of the piece is its revival of two precious movie tropes: the flourishing of words for their majesty and fun, and--in the love play between Fiennes and his enchantress--the kindling of a playfully adult eroticism. Read full review
100
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
Shakespeare meets Sherlock, and makes for pure enchantment in the inspired conjecture behind Shakespeare in Love. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
One of those entertaining confections that's so pleasing to the eye and ear you'd have to be a genuine Scrooge to struggle against it. Read full review
100
Washington PostMichael O' Sullivan
Paltrow and Fiennes are so good and the script, referencing not only "Romeo and Juliet" but "Twelfth Night," is so consistently intelligent that seduction is inevitable. Read full review
100
Film.comNorman Green
These are the heights of cinematic achievement.
100
New York PostRod Dreher
If she (Paltrow) were the only good thing about Shakespeare in Love, it still would have been worth seeing; that she is the crown jewel in a glittering tiara of a film studded with writing and acting gems testifies to the deep pleasures to be found in this remarkable movie. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianBarry Johnson
Like "Amadeus," Shakespeare in Love works splendidly as an appreciation of an artist in the heat of creation, and it breathes life into "Romeo and Juliet." Read full review
100
Film.comGemma Files
It's a rollicking good time, full of genuine emotional pull and incandescent acting, and anchored by a passionate love for the theater itself which puts most human liaisons--including Shakespeare and Viola's -- to shame.
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Some scholars may scowl, some lowbrows may scoff. But, like wordwise Will, these filmmakers know how to win a crowd -- from the queen down to the groundlings, from the sky above to the stage below. Bravo! [5 December 1998, Friday, p.A]
100
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Anyone not romantically inclined going into Shakespeare in Love surely will be by the end. Read full review
90
VarietyLael Lowenstein
Exquisitely acted, tightly directed and impressively assembled. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
It's easy to suspend disbelief and embrace this historically creative fiction, whose clever relationship to what's known and what's unresolved is part of what makes it so intriguing and so romantic. Read full review
90
Mr. ShowbizEleonore Snow
The result is a film that is as witty, astute, and romantic as its timeless subject. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
The beauty of this extremely clever movie, directed with fleet, robust theatricality by John Madden, is how deftly it manages to work on multiple levels. Read full review
90
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The movie becomes something quite rare and magical: a text about a text that is also full of life. In other words, it's a true first: It's both postmodern and fun! Read full review
90
TNT RoughCutJennifer Nowitzky
The most romantic film of the year.
90
Film.comPeter Brunette
Stoppard's luxuriant, richly comic language cascades and washes over you, and, for once, more than keeps pace with the sprightly pictures.
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
The end result is a delightful, though a smidge too long, reminder of one of the reasons we so enjoy going to the movies: perchance to dream. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
Accessibly brainy screen charmer. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The whole ensemble has a hoot with this material, and their joy is contagious. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Inordinately clever, sprightly romantic comedy. Read full review
88
San Francisco ExaminerWalter Addiego
Its brazen mixture of the comic and dramatic, the high and low and the emotional and intellectual is positively Shakespearean. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverM. V. Moorhead
These filmmakers have taken a historical figure and made him into a hot-blooded romantic hero. Shakespeare did that a time or two himself. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Delivers the goods, if the goods you're in the market for happen to be a clever romance concerning William Shakespeare that's unlikely to cause anyone to reassess their notions of Shakespeare, romance, or enjoyment. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Not a great film, but it's an excuse to have an evening of pure enjoyment with a little culture painlessly mixed in. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Good fun, though not more than up-market situation comedy studded with the usual leaps out of period-speak to swipe at contemporary Hollywood. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineSandra Contreras
This delightful, fast-paced and entirely fictional imagining of Shakespeare's life during the writing of "Romeo and Juliet" brims with witticisms predicated on the determination to have a rollicking good time exploring the link between libido and creativity. Read full review
60
SalonLaura Miller
A corny, old-fashioned backstage farce. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
This romantic farce has a talented cast and energy to spare, but somehow the ingredients don't burn as brightly as one would expect from such promising ingredients. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAmy Taubin
It soon becomes evident just how inane a film this is. Read full review
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