100
Day Lewis' re-creation of writer/painter Christy Brown's condition is so precise, so detailed and so matter-of-fact that it transcends the carping about casting an actor without cerebral palsy. He couldn't have done it better.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
A rounded portrayal that leaves an overwhelming sense of the miraculousness of life.
88
One hundred and six minutes is entirely too short a time span for Sheridan to cover Christy's entire life, but the performances are so profound they successfully fill in any and all gaps.
100
My Left Foot is gloriously exultant and hilariously unexpected...Sheridan and his great young star have universalized their broken hero.
90
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Day-Lewis's performance is necessarily a bit showy—one has to strain at times to understand all his dialogue because of the character's contorted features—but he puts on a terrific drunk scene, and for all his character's travails the film as a whole winds up surprisingly upbeat.
100
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
Throughout his life, Brown refused to give in to public convention or his own despair; he wouldn't play the victim. Brown labored to express all of his feelings, not just the acceptable ones. Day Lewis works the same way. My Left Foot, a keen match of actor and subject, stands as an eloquent tribute to the talents of both.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
My Left Foot is a great film for many reasons, but the most important is that it gives us such a complete picture of this man's life. It is not an inspirational movie, although it inspires. It is not a sympathetic movie, although it inspires sympathy. It is the story of a stubborn, difficult, blessed and gifted man who was dealt a bad hand, who played it brilliantly, and who left us some good books, some good paintings and the example of his courage.
90
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
An intelligent, beautifully acted adaptation.