The Sound of Music
Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: March 2, 1965 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
3
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphSarah Crompton
As for Andrews, she is just a joy, conveying enough doubt beneath that brisk, clean exterior to stop her character becoming a prig; her comic timing and the way in which she convinces in her relationships with the children are so understated they can be underrated. Read full review
100
VarietyWhitney Williams
The Robert Wise production is a warmly pulsating, captivating drama set to the most imaginative use of the lilting R-H tunes, magnificently mounted and with a brilliant cast headed by Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer which must strike a respondent chord at the box office. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterJames Powers
The 20th-Fox release will be one of the movies' all-time hits, one of the all-time great pictures. It restores your faith in movies. If you sit quietly and let it take, it may also restore your faith in humanity. It does this with infectious wit, with consistent gaiety, with simple and realistic spirituality, with romance of heartbreak and heartmend. This is set against the most beautiful scenery you have seen in your life. The Sound of Music is quite a picture. Read full review
100
EmpireCaroline Westbrook
One of the greatest screen musicals ever. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsKate Cameron
Robert Wise has transformed the delightful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical stage production of "The Sound of Music" into a magical film in which Julie Andrews gives an endearing performance in the role of Maria, the governess. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan Brooks
Robert Wise's adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical still has a little soul in its bones, with its reactionary nature tempered by Ernest Lehman's supple screenplay, and its elephantine running-time eased by a set of songs that lodge in your system like hookworms. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
It's so perfectly contrived and mechanical and fresh as a daisy, it's infuriating. Read full review
40
The New York TimesBosley Crowther
Miss Andrews, with her air of radiant vigor, her appearance of plain-Jane wholesomeness and her ability to make her dialogue as vivid and appealing as she makes her songs, brings a nice sort of Mary Poppins logic and authority to this role, which is always in peril of collapsing under its weight of romantic nonsense and sentiment. Read full review
40
TimeStaff (Not Credited)
Though Director Robert Wise (West Side Story) has made capital of the show's virtues, he can do little to disguise its faults. In dialogue, song and story, Music still contains too much sugar, too little spice. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
This 1965 hit is the sort of film that reeks of emotional Muzak, the most elemental responses programmed right into the scenario. Every audience sniffle and tear has been taken into account. Read full review
30
The New YorkerPauline Kael
Whom could this operetta offend? Only those of us who, despite the fact that we may respond, loathe being manipulated in this way and are aware of how cheap and ready-made are the responses we are made to feel.
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