The Old Man and the Sea
Warner Bros. | Release Date: October 11, 1958 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 8 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Sturges's direction, given the confining nature of the settings, is masterful, and the cinematography headed by Howe and pieced together by many others is sometimes stunning. Read full review
63
USA TodayMike Clark
Some of James Wong Howe's photography is lovely, compensating for the rear-projected fish. [12 Jul 1996]
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
While Spencer Tracy provides a solid performance in the title role and Dimitri Tiomkin won an Oscar for his score, the overall effect of trying to film this rather unfilmable novel is a bit like an illustrated slide lecture. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklySteve Simels
Essentially, it’s a slow-moving, low-rent Moby Dick with portentous voice-overs and unconvincing process shots of Spencer Tracy in a studio tank. In fact, why director John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven) bothered to make it remains a mystery. Read full review
50
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
It captures the dignity and the stubborness of the old man, and it is tender in his final defeat. And yet it isn’t a completely satisfying picture. There are long and arid stretches, when it seems as if producer and director were merely trying to fill time. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesLloyd Sachs
The real star is cinematographer James Wong Howe, who distracts us from the character's lulling conversations with himself -- and Tracy's grim voiceovers -- with his magisterial seascapes and sunsets. [18 Feb 1999, p.31]
40
The New York TimesBosley Crowther
Whatever allegorical intimations there may be in it are not conveyed to any sensible degree in a voice narration that breaks in occasionally or in the mumblings of the old man. Read full review
30
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
A painfully sincere, meticulously faithful, and pitifully plodding adaptation of Hemingway's novel about the symbolic struggle between an old Mexican fisherman and a giant marlin. Read full review
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