Snowden
Open Road Films | Release Date: September 16, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
21
Negative:
2
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubSep 15, 2016
Moviegoers will love or hate Oliver Stone and his politics until the end of time. With well-made movies such as Snowden, though, his skill as a filmmaker becomes much harder for the detractors to debate. Read full review
100
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 10, 2016
It’s the most important and galvanizing political drama by an American filmmaker in years. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsAllen SalkinSep 10, 2016
You might not agree with Stone that the man is a hero, but you probably do want to see the film so you can compute what the whole uproar was about. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonSep 15, 2016
Gordon-Levitt turns in an Oscar-worthy performance as a man who’s all too aware of what he’s letting himself in for. And Woodley skillfully balances a range of emotions as Lindsay. Read full review
83
HitfixDrew McWeenySep 15, 2016
Snowden has a secret weapon, and it’s one that I wasn’t expecting: a fully-engaged and on-his-game Oliver Stone. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 15, 2016
Regardless of how they feel about the main character, most viewers are likely to leave the theater reminded of Stone’s instinctive brilliance as a filmmaker — his grasp of visual language not just to tell a story but to expose its essential emotional core. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniSep 15, 2016
Chilling - and very chatty. Snowden is a seriously talky film. Yet it never feels tedious, thanks to Stone's tremendous sense of story construction, the film's razor-sharp editing - and Gordon-Levitt's masterful performance. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 15, 2016
As always, it’s a good idea to do your homework before or after seeing an Oliver Stone movie. You may come out convinced of his point of view and still feel hustled by how he got you there. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 14, 2016
Snowden works best when it’s just Edward and the three journalists in that hotel room, sweating it out, or when we see the pattern of events that led him to commit acts that exposed the shocking practices of our own government but also quite possibly created serious security breaches. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 13, 2016
Even with its flaws, Snowden is Stone's return to relevance, in subject and execution. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenSep 13, 2016
Gordon-Levitt carries the movie, and without flash or overt dramatics, overshadows everyone else in it. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 13, 2016
Despite my issues with the structure of Snowden, there are numerous accomplished scenes and the film is carried throughout by Gordon-Levitt. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 15, 2016
Mr. Stone has made an honorable and absorbing contribution to the imaginative record of our confusing times. He tells a story torn from slightly faded headlines, filling in some details you may have forgotten, and discreetly embellishing the record in the service of drama and suspense. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 15, 2016
It’s a gripping movie, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is good as Snowden (his voice alone is terrific), capturing his nerdy intelligence and passion for patriotism. Read full review
70
Village VoiceBilge EbiriSep 14, 2016
Stone seems genuinely interested in the slow and steady process by which Edward Snowden came to distrust the government that he worked for, and the director has made a slow and steady movie to go with it. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 14, 2016
Gordon-Levitt, however, nails the part completely, physically hunching down into himself and getting Snowden’s halting, thoughtful speech patterns just right, while Stone, working with screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald, creates a whirlwind ride nearly but not quite worthy of The Parallax View-era conspiracy thrillers. Read full review
67
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerSep 14, 2016
Snowden is a film of sincere outrage, even when it strains to articulate that outrage in a less from-the-headlines manner. Read full review
67
The Film StageJared MobarakSep 11, 2016
Stone doesn’t care about Snowden as much as he does the ramifications of what his employers accomplished. He’s focused on the future, fearful the next person over-stepping boundaries is Donald Trump. This doesn’t make the film a resounding success, but it does make it fascinating. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 15, 2016
For a director whose reputation is built on aggressively in-your-face subjects and styles, Snowden stands as a strangely inert outlier, a project that lacks passion although not perspective. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 15, 2016
It's fairly absorbing though, increasingly, a bit of an eye-roller, and it's designed, photographed and edited to make you itchy with paranoia. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramDec 22, 2016
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is credible as the former NSA contractor, but Stone gets side-tracked by his relationship with Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley) and Rhys Ifans’ leering CIA suit. Read full review
60
EmpireJimi FamurewaDec 12, 2016
Aided by a dialled-down Gordon-Levitt, Stone skilfully demystifies one of the Obama era’s most compelling stories. It’s a welcome return to form for a cinematic sleeping giant. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 17, 2016
Stone is so intent on making Snowden an icon that he scrubs him of his nuances, his individuality. Read full review
60
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 10, 2016
For a film that’s so politically risky — Stone hasn’t named names and pointed fingers (at both sides of the aisle, incidentally) in a mainstream movie like this for years — it’s surprisingly safe aesthetically. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 16, 2016
Laura Poitras’s Oscar-winning 2014 Snowden documentary “Citizenfour” is, almost inevitably, a stronger experience. That, too, was a species of political thriller but, unlike Stone’s film, it’s actually thrilling. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloSep 14, 2016
A duly serious and ambitious fall movie that, despite the best efforts of its formidable director and cast, can’t remotely match the excitement of real life. Read full review
58
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 10, 2016
As a piece of filmed entertainment Snowden is certainly a watchable endeavor, but Stone and screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald’s script is often an odd mix of hero worship, conspiratorial thriller and cringe worthy dialogue. Read full review
55
The VergeBryan BishopSep 13, 2016
The issues that Snowden raises are without question some of the biggest issues of our times — but a movie this safe won’t leave anybody thinking about them. Read full review
50
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneySep 17, 2016
Snowden has some entertaining sequences, many of which explain the whistleblower’s story in an easily digestible narrative that doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence or think too highly of itself. But the final moments are a mess; Stone isn’t interested in showing us the real version of the man, only his glorified version. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 15, 2016
What's your take on Edward Snowden: A patriot deserving of a presidential pardon? A traitor deserving of execution, as Trump believes? Something in between? In Snowden the movie, in which a fiercely committed Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the title role, Oliver Stone removes all doubt. He's Saint Edward. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittSep 15, 2016
Snowden’s a polarizing whistleblower portrayed as an American hero here but in too pedestrian a fashion for such a hot-button topic, and the movie seems at times as awkward as its brainiac subject. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 13, 2016
The voice of skepticism is sorely missed in Oliver Stone’s credulous bio-pic, Snowden. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineOleg IvanovSep 10, 2016
The film depicts Edward Snowden's ethical dilemmas in a political vacuum that disregards America's increasingly complex security threats. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 10, 2016
Stone’s mixture of paranoid thriller, political commentary and romantic drama keeps Snowden feeling busy without ever being particularly engrossing or enlightening. Frustratingly, Snowden remains a ghost in the machine. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 10, 2016
Stone’s direction is measured, methodical, and totally lacking in the fire and flamboyance that sometimes electrified and sometimes ruined his earlier films. The story moves along without any real sense of urgency or suspense. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 10, 2016
It somehow manages to make a fascinating, utterly contemporary narrative feel like old news. Read full review
40
CineVueBen NicholsonSep 15, 2016
Gordon-Levitt is perfectly fine as Snowden, getting the voice and cadence fairly spot on and he looks almost right. The problem is that he's such an introvert and blank slate - that's pretty good for espionage but not especially compelling for a character arc. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 15, 2016
Stone's characteristic on-his-sleeve political views aren't the problem with the often-sleepy Snowden. Rather, it's that his film – the lag-prone script for which the filmmaker co-wrote with Kieran Fitzgerald – really doesn't tell us much that we don't already know. That'll certainly be the case for anyone who saw director Laura Poitras' Oscar-winning 2014 documentary "Citizenfour," a remarkable bit of filmmaking. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 15, 2016
There’s a deeper emptiness at the core of the movie, a failure of nerve and a fundamental incuriosity about what makes the Snowden affair interesting and relevant, then and now. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 10, 2016
What made Snowden so compelling in the excellent 2014 documentary Citizenfour reduces him, in the context of an Oliver Stone thriller, to a blur. Even Hackers was more exciting. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 10, 2016
In his dry and uninvolving dramatic take, Stone has made a film aimed at breaking out Snowden’s story to the masses but it’s made with such limpness that a swift read of his Wikipedia page will prove far more exciting. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithSep 15, 2016
Snowden could have been a character portrait, but instead it’s like “The Bourne Identity” minus the chases and fights, which is like a ham and cheese sandwich minus the ham and cheese. As a consequence, I suspect, this film will make no bread. Read full review
10
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 15, 2016
Snowden is mostly flat, overlong, unfocused and didactic. Read full review
More From This Movie

58 Critic Reviews

7.1 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