Titanic
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 19, 1997 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
6
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Like the doomed vessel from which it takes its tale, Cameron's film is a behemoth, svelte, streamlined, and not the least bit ponderous. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunAnn Hornaday
The title represents size and power, speed and hubris -- the very things the ship has come to stand for and the things that Cameron has restored to the cinema with grand, generous style. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeJay Carr
Titanic is a big-budget spectacle and director Cameron brings it off with high-tech bravura, placing us aboard the ship in real time. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
One hell of a movie. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A film that sweeps us away into a world of spectacle, beauty and excitement, a realm of fantasy unimaginable without the movies. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The first half drags a bit, but the adventure scenes are exciting and the visual effects are as dazzling as Hollywood's most advanced technology can make them. Focusing as much on time and memory as on danger and disaster, it's an epic with a heart. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverPeter Rainer
It's a powerfully ersatz experience, but at least it's powerful. There's a lot to like here: At three hours and 14 minutes, the film takes longer to watch than the Titanic took to sink. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Titanic floods you with elemental passion in a way that invites comparison with the original movie spectacles of D.W. Griffith. Read full review
70
Film.comJohn Hartl
Technically, Titanic is a marvel.
70
Film.comRobert Horton
Like it or hate it, Titanic lives and breathes as a piece of pure cinema.
50
Film.comTom Keogh
The would-be emotional centerpiece of his three-hours-plus adventure flick is the most juvenile romantic tale of 1997.
50
Film.comPeter Brunette
The human interest story that occupies fully two-thirds of this three hour plus epic is so flat and unconvincing that, for once, you find yourself longing for the disaster footage to start.
30
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
What audiences end up with word-wise is a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances, a movie that reeks of phoniness and lacks even minimal originality. Read full review
90
Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard
Will take you by surprise as a romantic, fast-paced, entertaining spectacle that deserves to earn back every penny spent to produce it. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsDave Kehr
It leaves the port of enterprise and arrives on the far shore of art. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
The true allure of Titanic is its invitation to swoon at a scale of epic moviemaking that is all but obsolete. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's quite possible that Titanic is one of the greatest romantic epics ever filmed. Read full review
100
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
You don't just watch Titanic, you experience it. Read full review
20
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Cameron manhandles the real story, scavenging it for his own puny narrative purposes. It's a film made with boorish confidence and zero sensitivity, big and dumb and hulking. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The last hour of Titanic is huge and staggering, but there's no horror in it. No gravity, either. Entrusted with one of the century's monumental stories, Cameron can present it only as a crying shame. And that's a crying shame. Read full review
38
San Francisco ExaminerG. Allen Johnson
No amount of excellent period costuming and brilliant set decoration can substitute for a good story and decent acting. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
Cameron has never been known for his dialogue, but Titanic carries some stinkers that wouldn't make the final draft of a "Days of Our Lives" script. Read full review
90
The A.V. ClubMaria Schneider
That the familiar story of the Titanic disaster is told with suspense is not as surprising as Cameron's clear-headed balance of truth and fiction, spectacle and tragedy. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Titanic is awesome even when it's awful -- you can't take your eyes off the extraordinary thing. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterDuane Byrge
Narratively, Titanic is a masterwork of big-canvas storytelling, broad enough to entrance and entertain yet precise and delicate enough to educate and illuminate. Read full review
100
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
With the ship, with its totality of people, Cameron is wizardly, creating an entire society threading through the various strata of a world that has been set afloat from the rest of the world. [Jan. 5, 1998]
100
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
A huge, thrilling three-and-a-quarter-hour experience that unerringly lures viewers into the beauty and heartbreak of its lost world. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
Ultimately, Titanic will sail or sink not on its budget but on its merits as drama and spectacle. The regretful verdict here: Dead in the water. Read full review
100
TNT RoughCutAndy Jones
A heart-tugging potboiler that is at once poetic, tragic and cold as steel.
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's both the shortest 3 1/2 hours you'll ever spend at the movies and spectacle of such magnitude that it's hard to imagine feeling you didn't get your time and money's worth. Read full review
100
USA TodayMike Clark
His (Cameron) movie may not be perfect, but visually and viscerally, it pretty well is. Read full review
90
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A spectacular demonstration of what modern technology can contribute to dramatic storytelling. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Cameron captures the majesty, the tragedy, the fury and the futility of the event in a way that supersedes his trivial attempts to melodramatize it. Read full review
60
Washington PostDesson Thomson
This movie should have blown us out of the water. Instead we catch ourselves occasionally thinking the unpardonable thought: "OK, sink already." Read full review
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