Still Alice
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: December 5, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
31
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireDavid HughesMar 2, 2015
Julianne Moore gives the performance of her career (no mean feat, given the strength of her previous work) in this heartbreaking yet life-affirming tale of a woman determined to hold onto her identity while under attack from a debilitating mental disease. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 23, 2015
Moore is nominated this year, and whether she wins or not, her performance deserves attention. It is one of this very fine actress' defining roles. And it resonates with humanity and heartbreak. Read full review
100
Time OutDavid EhrlichDec 3, 2014
The rare film possessed with the courage required to shine a light into that abyss knowing full well that down is the only way out. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedDec 3, 2014
Ms. Moore shares her journey with boundless generosity. She makes you feel what it’s like to lose the wind beneath your wings. Read full review
100
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 14, 2014
It’s extremely moving in the gentlest, most linear way, and the other performances are sterling, too. Read full review
91
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallFeb 11, 2015
For all of its movie-of-the-week mechanics, this is a deeply moving dramatization of what Alzheimer's does to mind and spirit, anchored by the finest performance, male or female, from any 2014 movie release. Read full review
91
HitfixGregory EllwoodSep 14, 2014
The film lives and dies on Moore’s portrayal. She succeeds smashingly. Read full review
90
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJan 13, 2015
The triumph of Still Alice is that it’s not about an illness; it’s about a person. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 14, 2014
The toll the disease takes on the life of a brilliant linguistics professor is superbly detailed by Julianne Moore in a career-high performance, driving straight to the terror of the disease and its power to wipe out personal certainties and identity. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 14, 2014
Julianne Moore guides us through the tragic arc of how it must feel to disappear before one’s own eyes, accomplishing one of her most powerful performances by underplaying the scenario. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 19, 2015
Still Alice is undoubtedly a tough movie; it contains life-affirming moments but its perspective is what makes it unique. Read full review
88
New York PostLou LumenickDec 3, 2014
You won’t see a better performance by an actress on film this year than Julianne Moore as a linguistics professor struggling to hold onto her personality after a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s in the unforgettable drama Still Alice. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJan 14, 2015
Going on 20 years now, Moore is someone who's been so reliably good for so long that we've probably taken her for granted. But her subtle, heartbreaking decline as Alice—from her initial diagnosis to her daily struggle to hold on to her identity and dignity to her eventual disappearance in plain sight—is among her most devastating performances. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyMar 2, 2015
Moore gives a controlled portrait of emotional implosion, bringing quietly heartbreaking nuances to a calm, considered treatment of a life-shattering situation. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensDec 15, 2014
Glatzer and Westmoreland don’t need to stack the emotional deck on Alice’s behalf or wring tears from the irony of a brilliant linguist’s cognitive decline. They just leave the camera on Moore’s beautiful but increasingly faraway face, and our tears come on their own. Read full review
80
TheWrapJames RocchiDec 2, 2014
There's an extraordinarily tough and smart delicacy to Still Alice, and it stretches far beyond the writing or Moore's performance or even the sympathy of the circumstance. Read full review
80
The GuardianCatherine ShoardOct 20, 2014
This is an effortlessly excellent film, about a horribly hard subject. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 29, 2015
With Moore’s formidable, Oscar-bound performance, the picture transcends the usual cliches of the genre to become something far more moving and profound. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 22, 2015
At its best, Still Alice is a moving inquisition into the emotions and memories and connections that make us us and how we might cope when they’re taken away with slow, impersonal cruelty. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 15, 2015
Moore delivers a performance that should win awards. We believe every inch of the performance, every movement of Moore’s eyes when she gets the news of her condition, every scene in which she experiences another level of deterioration. It’s beautiful work. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 15, 2015
For all the movie’s honesty, the reality of Alzheimer’s disease is a lot worse than what you see in Still Alice. Perhaps directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland made a calculation as to how much an audience can take. They were right. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 15, 2015
Moore shows us acting at its best, alive with ferocity and feeling and committed to truth. Read full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreDec 6, 2014
Moore makes us root for Alice, not for a cure, which still seems a reach, but for a completion of her life’s goals, a chance to control her fate as long as she has the wherewithal to do it. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 5, 2014
It’s a strange movie – simultaneously rawly realistic and airbrushed. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 4, 2014
While other Alzheimer's-related films, including "Amour," "Iris" and "Away from Her", delved more deeply into the subject, Alice is understated yet still moving. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyDec 3, 2014
Though shot in the stolidly inconspicuous style of a low-rated cable drama, Still Alice is rarely anything short of compelling, in part because its sense of progression and scale offers such a distinctively unsentimental take on the terminal-countdown tearjerker. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 22, 2015
It's Moore who makes the movie worthwhile, who elevates it from disease-of-the-week fare to the role of a lifetime. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 4, 2014
Elements of its plot have the standard quality of a Hallmark production, and the work of some of the film's costars is a bit too on the nose. But, with Moore and Stewart on the case, we feel the presence of something real here, something that can't be shrugged off or ignored. Read full review
63
Washington PostStephanie MerryMar 5, 2015
The filmmakers invite the audience to get close enough to feel the pain without having to relive the depths of the real-life horror. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 22, 2015
Still Alice is being called a career performance for Moore, and although it may be one of her most poignant roles (it has earned her a fifth Oscar nomination), the part barely scratches the surface of her ability. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireDec 5, 2014
With a combination of power and grace, Julianne Moore elevates Still Alice above its made-for-cable-television trappings, and delivers one of the more memorable performances of her career. Read full review
60
CineVuePatrick GambleMar 5, 2015
A desire to avoid sentimentality is admirable, yet Still Alice relies entirely on Moore's performance to mask its multitude of shortcomings. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 15, 2015
Ms. Moore, for her part, doesn’t need fine writing to create marvelous moments; some of her most powerful scenes are wordless ones in which Alice is looking anxious, confused or utterly haunted. When the script provides exceptional material, however, this extraordinary actress takes it to a memorably high level. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 12, 2015
Time and again, as it comes to the next stage of deterioration or distress, it flinches. Try laying it beside Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” which shows the effect of a stroke on an elderly woman, no less refined than Alice, and on her loved ones. Haneke knows the worst, and considers it his duty to show it; Glatzer and Westmoreland want us to know just enough, and no more. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 4, 2014
The test of realism in a movie like this — the thing that would separate it from a conventional, made-for-television disease melodrama — is whether you can imagine lives for the secondary characters when they aren’t on screen. Still Alice lacks that kind of thickness. Read full review
60
SalonAndrew O'HehirDec 4, 2014
Aided by witty and understated work from Baldwin and Stewart and the capable direction of Glatzer and Westmoreland, Moore does her utmost to pull Still Alice toward the realm of meaningful social drama. Let’s put it this way: It’s a way better movie than it ought to be, but not good enough to escape its pulpy, mendacious roots. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 3, 2014
Hampered by both an unimaginative script and ordinary direction, but it’s a serious Oscar contender. Why? Because Julianne Moore is in the lead. Read full review
60
The DissolveScott TobiasDec 2, 2014
It’s undeniably moving, but straightforward to a fault. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiFeb 11, 2015
Moore’s much-lauded performance of a person disappearing before our eyes is a heartbreaking thing to behold; it’s unfortunate that the film around her can't rise above the level of uninspired melodrama. Read full review
50
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthSep 14, 2014
Competently directed, and delivered with the expected emotional beats, Still Alice achieves its modest goals, but one wishes it had a grander vision. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezDec 3, 2014
Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart's artful consideration of familial friction acerbated by disease, and vice versa, nearly saves Still Alice from the banality of its Lifetime-movie execution. Read full review
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