Stonewall
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: September 25, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
30
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
11
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerSep 24, 2015
This is an OK movie about a serious subject and an important milestone in the road to gay freedom and equality. It’s just a shame it didn’t accomplish the kind of cinematic punch as did the Oscar-winning “Milk.” Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 18, 2015
If the resulting drama, Stonewall, seldom escapes its cliches or cookie-cutter characters, it also recounts a political origin story in relatable, often affecting terms. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinSep 24, 2015
The proceedings can seem less like a fresh retelling of a seminal story and more like, despite stabs at grit and terror, a theatricalized, dewy-eyed version of days past. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 24, 2015
The resulting film winds up like a compelling story about an iconic civil-rights event buried beneath an avalanche of stereotypes and bad writing. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonSep 24, 2015
In a way, Stonewall is proof that the gay community has fully made the transition to the mainstream. It’s now subject to the kind of Hollywood nonsense that was previously reserved for heterosexuals. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 23, 2015
Though it delivers disaster-movie specialist Roland Emmerich’s usual mix of pop iconography, cornball Americana, and conspiracy theory, and benefits from some better-than-average performances in hokey roles, Stonewall is a farrago. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsStephen WhittySep 25, 2015
Stonewall may be about coming out of the closet, but it wants to play it straight. Read full review
40
The New York TimesStephen HoldenSep 24, 2015
The feisty, lovelorn Ray is far and away the strongest, most complex character, and Mr. Beauchamp gives him his due, even though too many of his speeches sound like a mix of biographical filler and boilerplate sloganeering. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenSep 23, 2015
Maybe Stonewall will have more value to younger viewers for whom the riots and gay marginalization in general are distant history and might be vivified by watching the film. Yet even though the film’s heart seems genuine, its structure is buttressed by falsies. Read full review
40
Screen DailyJohn HazeltonSep 21, 2015
Danny’s story isn’t dramatic or affecting enough to carry the film and other characters never develop into anything more than colourful ciphers. Irvine is appealing and relatable, but his performance isn’t always convincing and he’s handicapped by some clunky dialogue. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 21, 2015
Stonewall is no disaster, and to all those waiting to tear it apart, perhaps the best that can be said is that Emmerich’s film is neither as bad nor as insensitive as predicted, though it’s politics certainly are problematic. Read full review
40
The GuardianHenry BarnesSep 18, 2015
An outrageously misjudged drama that flirts with the story of the birth of the gay rights movement. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireSep 25, 2015
The film misses the chance to offer an original artistic or sociopolitical take on the 1969 riots that sparked the U.S. gay rights movement. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniSep 24, 2015
Overall, the effect is closer to a Monty Python skit or a Village People music vid than a serious film about civil rights. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickSep 24, 2015
With thinly drawn characters, uneven performances and tin-eared dialogue, Stonewall plays at best like a musical without the songs. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 24, 2015
Because Stonewall turns everyone into a sentimental or suffocating "type" instead of a dimensional character, the results are sheer noise. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineRichard Scott LarsonSep 22, 2015
At its worst, the film dangerously repackages the queer experience using language invented by those originally deployed to break it apart. Read full review
30
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 25, 2015
A well-intentioned, profoundly silly and borderline insulting movie. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyMaya StantonSep 30, 2015
There’s bad, and then there’s offensively bad. Read full review
25
Boston GlobePeter KeoughSep 28, 2015
Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall reduces these events to a backdrop for caricatures that were already passé in William Friedkin’s “The Boys in the Band” (1970). Read full review
25
Portland OregonianMarc MohanSep 25, 2015
It's also a real shame that such a fascinating reminder of how far civil rights have come in the last five decades has been reduced to such a turkey of a film. Read full review
25
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 24, 2015
It’s a shame that the beginning of a movement that has come so far, so fast has been reduced to a trite, calculatingly manipulative reenactment. Read full review
25
HitfixDrew McWeenySep 23, 2015
Stonewall is the anti-"Selma," a movie that not only fails to fully capture the energy and importance of a true event but that fails so completely as a film that it is almost impressive. Read full review
25
The PlaylistCharles BramescoSep 21, 2015
Every single one of Emmerich’s moves can be seen coming from several miles away, and yet, not because they adhere to any semblance of historical fact. Somehow, Emmerich makes a severely underserved narrative feel groaningly familiar. Read full review
20
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 23, 2015
Stonewall somehow manages to be simultaneously bloated and anemic, overstuffed and underpopulated. Read full review
10
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlSep 25, 2015
Stonewall aspires to be a sweeping tale of social change and hardscrabble street life, but at every moment it feels like a musical whose numbers have been cut. Read full review
10
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 25, 2015
Unfortunately, Roland Emmerich is a terrible filmmaker, and his efforts to make his protagonist "relatable" backfire spectacularly. Read full review
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