Walk the Line
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: November 18, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York PostLou Lumenick
Walk the Line superbly combines music and two of the year's most riveting performances to tell one of the screen's great love stories. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Breaks through the conventions of its biopic form with a pair of brilliant performances and a whole lot more.
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Witherspoon has nailed it before, notably in "Election," but her portrayal of June is astounding in its vitality and richness. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
What adds boundless energy to Walk the Line is the performance by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
A Johnny Cash biopic equally packed with music and frustrated love, Walk the Line goes from compelling to enthralling. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
It's a celebration of the good times and bad times shared by a man and woman who found each other in the middle of some historic craziness, and it rocks. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The film sends you home moved and in a tuneful mood. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
A big, juicy, enjoyable wide-canvas biography with a handful of indelible moments. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The movie is entertaining, reasonably true to the facts of its subject's life and full of music. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
In spite of its standard biopic gaps and simplifications, Walk the Line gets the big things right. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
As the star-crossed couple, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon contribute all their own vocals, and their soapier scenes together reminded me of no less than the 1954 "A Star Is Born." Read full review
80
SalonStephanie Zacharek
I suspect many Cash fans will think it's too conventional. But I think its conventionality is part of its power. Read full review
80
EmpireColin Kennedy
Witherspoon's June is a pistol - a sugar-rush of screwball energy and cornball Southern sass that's meticulously earthed with grace notes of sadness. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Mangold, Phoenix, and Witherspoon, all excellent in their roles. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This movie has a driving plotline that "Ray" lacked - a love story. To me, that's what elevates this film. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It doesn't matter much that Phoenix and Witherspoon sound more like Phoenix and Witherspoon than Cash and Carter. The chemistry is there. The actors walk their own line, successfully. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Cash was a true anomaly: a poseur who was also the genuine article. A better movie would have made that contradiction its core. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Conventional to the core but gets a blast of pure, hard-driving energy from Joaquin Phoenix's and Reese Witherspoon's vividly realized performances. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Cash made some untamed, exhilarating sounds in its formative days. Walk the Line is strongest when it shows him in love with either his music or his muse. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The best moments in Walk the Line are the plentiful musical sequences, from Cash's initial foray into the Sun Records studio in Memphis, to his nights performing in high school auditoriums alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, to his landmark concert at Folsom Prison in 1968, where his dangerous, edgy persona was cemented. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
What Walk the Line does well, it does really well. Mangold was ­wisely gen­erous with the amount of musical performance he included in the film, and the later scenes - showing Cash and Carter as partners - are so well shot and edited, they defy you to sit still. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
It's frustrating that a movie about a man so deathly serious about music has largely boiled his life down to addiction and adultery. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
A passionate, chronicle of an extraordinary artist, and a love story that can't be beat. Read full review
75
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Thanks to the movie's very clear respect for Cash and his music, and thanks mostly to the two superb, heartfelt performances by Reese Witherspoon as Carter and Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, Walk the Line eventually earned my sympathy. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Walk the Line is a strongly acted, musically vibrant, conventionally satisfying biopic of country/rock/blues legend Johnny Cash and his second wife, June Carter. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
An engaging biopic that would totally lack surprise were it not for Reese Witherspoon, and a healthy touch of ambivalence about the populist myth that bound The Man in Black to his adoring public. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The decision to approach Johnny's life as a love story causes Mangold to neglect the development of Johnny's music. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The movie is less an uncharted journey than a 2 p.m. bus tour of a music industry legend. But like an expert guide, Mangold shepherds the story with enough grace, energy and skill to make it worthwhile. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The problem is that the movie plays down almost everything that made Cash great: the train rumble of a voice, the direct, poetic truth of his best lyrics, the invention of his outlaw image and his constant creativity. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Ken Tucker
There are too many musical performances in this movie, even for a country fan such as myself, to keep the city slickers engaged. This bespeaks great faith in the charisma of the stars, who merit it. They also, however, deserved a better script. Read full review
60
The New YorkerDavid Denby
I couldn't imagine anyone better suited to play the role. But this movie is a lot less interesting than it might be. Though it's not bad--in fact, it's rather sweet--it's too simple a portrait of a very complicated and calculating entertainer. Read full review
60
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Unfortunately, for all its good music and admirable vocal impersonations, Walk the Line slides -- very, very slowly -- downhill. Read full review
60
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Cash is a legend, and deserving of a more thoughtful portrayal than what we’re offered here. Read full review
60
NewsweekDavid Ansen
This Man in Black is, frankly, a bit of a wuss. As a love story, Walk the Line can seduce. As a biopic, it treads awfully familiar Overcoming Adversity turf. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
In no way obsessive, Walk the Line is more sincerely--which is to say, more boringly--sincere. It doesn't leave you with much to think about, except maybe the empty vibrato of effective ventriloquism. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Ends up being another one of those life-of-an-entertainer films that reduces an artist to his most embarrassing moments. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
For all the affection Mangold feels for Cash and Carter, the movie feels oddly dispassionate. Read full review
50
The New York TimesDana Stevens
There is no way a feature-length movie could do justice to such bounty, and Walk the Line settles for the minimum. Read full review
More From This Movie

72 Critic Reviews

8.3 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL