John Adams
HBO | Release Date: March 16, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Daily News
Season 1 Review: Writers Kirk Ellis and Michelle Ashford do justice to McCullough's narration, and director Tom Hooper has a straightforward style that gives flesh-and-blood dimension to names from history books. Best of all are two extraordinary performances at the center: Paul Giamatti as Adams and Laura Linney as his wife, Abigail. Read full review
100
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: Credit for building drama goes to screenwriter Kirk Ellis ("Into the West") and actor Paul Giamatti ("Sideways"). His intellectual, vain Adams is a reluctant rebel, tentative in his support of an American revolution, wary of insurgency and mob rule and defender of the tenets of American democracy. Read full review
100
San Jose Mercury News/Contra Costa TimesCharlie McCollum
Season 1 Review: It manages to be a rousing piece of filmmaking, a fascinating character study and a largely accurate presentation of the time when America was born. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Season 1 Review: Who says TV doesn't make history thought-provokingly exciting? Read full review
90
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: John Adams, based on David McCullough's acclaimed biography, is as sumptuous and satisfying as TV gets: gorgeously produced, marvelously acted and written with a sense of high drama amid generous displays of wit. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron
Season 1 Review: This handsome miniseries is praiseworthy on many levels--as history, as entertainment and as a way to bring to life for new generations a sense of the sacrifice and heroism needed to establish the U.S. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
Season 1 Review: A rich, intelligent and often moving miniseries. Read full review
90
Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik
Season 1 Review: John Adams, a $100 million-plus production about the life and times of America's second president, is one of the most compelling miniseries of the decade. Read full review
90
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: The monumental production is worth bragging about. Read full review
90
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: John Adams is the kind of classily intelligent production that can be happily recommended to everybody. The filmmakers, including executive producer Tom Hanks, have attempted to re-create and enliven history--and they succeed grandly. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)John Leonard
Season 1 Review: We’re in excellent company, from the Boston Massacre to the Declaration of Independence to Adams’s plenipotentiary missions to Versailles and the Court of St. James to his unsought but extremely gratifying vice-presidency in the first Washington administration. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf Smith
Season 1 Review: It is not an exaggeration to say that the effect is of opening a treasure chest and being showered with its riches. Read full review
80
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: It is reverent enough, and profoundly heroic; and yet it is a living, breathing piece of work that brings American history down to earth. Read full review
80
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: Both the book and the miniseries sketch admirably human portraits of historical figures such as Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. Read full review
80
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: Ellis has used Adams' works to create a wondrously full and nuanced portrait of the man, which is brought fully to life by Paul Giamatti. Read full review
75
New York PostAdam Buckman
Season 1 Review: Though the miniseries represents a compressed and not entirely accurate history, it is moving enough to remind us of the sacrifices made by Adams and a great many other people to form a republic against almost impossible odds. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesMisha Davenport
Season 1 Review: While John Adams succeeds as entertainment, it utterly fails as a history lesson. Read full review
70
The New YorkerJill Lepore
Season 1 Review: At its best, the storytelling itself manages to accommodate a sense of historical contingency. Read full review
70
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: The adaptation is meticulous almost to a fault, including a fidelity to language and accents (a hybrid between British and American) that initially appears to handcuff some of the cast --beginning, most glaringly, with Giamatti, fresh off his turn as a jollier icon in "Fred Claus." Read full review
70
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: Far from epic, John Adams is a biopic as intense and moody as the man himself. Read full review
70
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: Ben Franklin (Tom Wilkinson ) enlivens the painterly prettiness and dutiful solemnity of John Adams with a healthy sense of the vulgar, as in the vernacular, as in the native voice of America. Read full review
70
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Season 1 Review: The production, based on David McCullough's biography, unfolds as a lavish, sometimes stilted history lesson. The private story of the Adams family is more intriguing and fresh. Read full review
63
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: Sadly, in this elaborately produced, incredibly well-intentioned seven-part HBO miniseries adaptation of the book, Adams recedes once again, outshone not just by his more famous peers but also by just about every minor character. Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 92 The Pitt: Season 2
2 90 The Celebrity Traitors UK: Season 1
3 89 Rivals
4 87 Hacks: Season 5
5 87 Industry: Season 4
6 87 Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal:...
7 85 The Beatles Anthology
8 85 The Traitors [UK]: Season 4
9 85 Bait: Season 1
10 84 Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!
11 83 Lord of the Flies
12 83 Riot Women: Season 1
13 83 For All Mankind: Season 5
14 81 The Muppet Show (2026)
15 80 Outlander (2014): Season 8
16 80 The Other Bennet Sister: Season 1
17 80 The Mighty Nein: Season 1
18 80 The Comeback: Season 3
19 80 The American Revolution
20 80 One Piece (2023): Season 2
SEE ALL