Paterno: Season 1

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Generally favorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Ratings

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4.6

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4.6	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Ratings

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Season Details & Credits

HBO | Season Premiere Date: April 7, 2018

Summary: Directed by Barry Levinson, the film focuses on Penn State's football coach Joe Paterno (Al Pacino) as the story of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal breaks and ultimately leads to Paterno's termination.

Genre(s): Drama, Sports, Movie/Mini-Series

Season 1 Episodes

No episode information is currently available for this season

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Critic Reviews

Uncle Barky Ed Bark

Apr 4, 2018

The portrayal of Paterno is right up there with Pacino’s very best work. Kudos to HBO for keeping him center stage, which is where he still belongs. Read full review

Richard Roeper

Dec 14, 2018

Unsettling and riveting and scathing. Read full review

David Edelstein

Apr 6, 2018

Paterno’s makers, director Barry Levinson and writers Debora Cahn and John C. Richards, have a risky idea that mostly pays off: They’ve constructed their film around a vacuum. ... That’s the downside to making your protagonist semi-mute and depriving him of a revelatory final scene. But the upside, I think, is worth it. The subject of Paterno isn’t venality. ... It’s his shrunkenness that’s the cautionary tale. Read full review

Darren Franich

Apr 2, 2018

It's a fine, if recessive, performance, but Paterno himself gets lost in the shuffle as director Barry Levinson covers every aspect of the story. [6/13 Apr 2018, p.84]

Hank Stuever

Apr 5, 2018

When the film feels needlessly vague or remote, Pacino brings it back in with just a look or a sigh. Read full review

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Apr 9, 2018

A drama about sexual abuse and institutional corruption might seem topical, but all Paterno offers its audience is a chance to re-experience the cable news cycle of yesteryear. Read full review

TV Guide Magazine Matt Roush

Mar 29, 2018

Director Barry Levinson fumbles in his latest collaboration with star Al Pacino. ... Paterno spends most of the movie stewing in irritable confusion. [2 Apr - 15 Apr 2018, p.11]

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4.6

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User Reviews

calhounite

May 16, 2018

Powerful, exonerative portrayal of Paterno. Transformative. Depicts the heroic Paterno, not the excoriated Freeh Report one. The key is the redress of Paterno's lawyer son when asks if he didn't hear about rumors. Supernal rebuke warning of the devastating damage that can be incurred byPowerful, exonerative portrayal of Paterno. Transformative. Depicts the heroic Paterno, not the excoriated Freeh Report one. The key is the redress of Paterno's lawyer son when asks if he didn't hear about rumors. Supernal rebuke warning of the devastating damage that can be incurred by judging people in that manner. Pure anguish in realizing that this forbearance resulted in its own devastation. And makes clear that Paterno believed Sandusky had concocted his own image orbit through the Second Mile and wasn't a product of Paterno's. His remark that Sandusky had duped him along with scores of others, powerful figures, child professionals, exploiting that orbit resonates as ruefully sincere.

Curley's email stated that Paterno wanted Sandusky to be confronted with the charge. What's wrong with that? That's basic to give a man a chance to explain. That would be a thought arising from the heroic Paterno.

The question has never been whether or not Paterno believed McQueary. It is this. Did Paterno believe he did enough to set the judicial/police/social services investigative process in motion in order to arrive at the appropriate determination regarding Sandusky. It would be perfectly ok for Paterno to take a stance of utter detachment as long as HE BELIEVED HE DID THIS.

Don't know. Won't never be known. The movie's inherent premise is that the answer is yes. Pacino's artistic portrayal weighs ever so slightly toward a self-recriminating guilt rather than a guilt arising from conscious knowledge of deliberate subterfuge. However, the outrage of society against Paterno is understandable as the answer appears on the surface to be no. Never asked again about the status of the presumably ongoing/completed investigation. Did in 1998. Didn't in 2001. Is the fact that Sandusky was a direct subordinate in 1998 but not in 2001 a sufficient reason?

The movie's closing scene balances out its driving viewpoint. But this movie gives Paterno's life a chance to be defined by Paterno, not Sandusky. It uplifts Paterno, his family, Penn State, and the admirers of Paterno. Pacino's acting makes it possible. It is a masterpiece in the portrayal of different perspectives.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

mikemacdad

Apr 10, 2018

This is an absolutely horrible story, but a story that has to be told. Joe Paterno was a great man, a great coach, a great husband...........but at the end of the day he had the ability to stop a child rapist and he chose to protect his kingdom over the moral and ethical easy choice. PSUThis is an absolutely horrible story, but a story that has to be told. Joe Paterno was a great man, a great coach, a great husband...........but at the end of the day he had the ability to stop a child rapist and he chose to protect his kingdom over the moral and ethical easy choice. PSU cult members will always blindly defend him and that is disgusting.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

amheretojudge

Apr 11, 2018

why are they talking about him..

Paterno There isn't much to look up to in this plot, no matter how much impact it creates on screen the characters are left off far away disconnected from the audience which is never acceptable especially on such character driven feature. Barrywhy are they talking about him..

Paterno

There isn't much to look up to in this plot, no matter how much impact it creates on screen the characters are left off far away disconnected from the audience which is never acceptable especially on such character driven feature. Barry Levinson; the director, tries too hard on executing the anticipated vision but fails to deliver it. And if anything that helps one survive this feature, it is Al Pacino and his brilliant portrayal that is supported with a good cast. Paterno is plausible on some aspects but is piled up by this raw script whose attempt to go in detail on facts leads to an informative art rather than being entertaining one.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

imthenoob

Jan 16, 2019

Pacino does a great job but the film does little to offer any new insights into the man as he is dealing with the falling out of the scandal that brought down the college he built up. Instead, He comes off as a man who cares little about how things affected everyone else until he has toPacino does a great job but the film does little to offer any new insights into the man as he is dealing with the falling out of the scandal that brought down the college he built up. Instead, He comes off as a man who cares little about how things affected everyone else until he has to deal with his own mortality. And I wasn't a fan of how Paterno tried to put Joe in a better light than what he really was: He wasn't some ill-informed man that possibly knew more than he did, Which is what they tried to portrait in the film. He was a man that repeatedly covered up a scandal in order to save his own skin and the legacy he built.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

cmwy10a

Apr 14, 2018

Waste of time with no digging into this terrible attempt to be a Paterno bio. Much has been shown to be wrong and evidence of major failures by Pennsylvania gov agency’s failings given almost no coverage. No conclusion leaves viewer hollow.

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

Seasons & Episodes

69

Series Overview
Season 1

69
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: April 7, 2018
- No episode information is currently available for this season