100
USA Today by Claudia Puig
It's hard to imagine how a film built around one-on-one interviews could be entertaining, but Frost/Nixon could not be more enthralling.
Frost/Nixon
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- United Kingdom,
- France,
- United States
- 2008
- · 122m
Director
Ron Howard
Cast
Michael Sheen,
Frank Langella,
Kevin Bacon,
Sam Rockwell,
Matthew Macfadyen,
Oliver Platt
Genre
Drama,
History
Former President Nixon sits down for his first interview following his resignation from office in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Nixon selected British journalist David Frost to conduct the interview, and the journalist confronts the former commander-in-chief with harsh questions about his past and the political cover-up that ended his career.
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What are critics saying?
100
TV Guide Magazine by Perry Seibert
The craftsmanship, acting, and history lesson all make it among the most satisfying films of Ron Howard's career.
100
Premiere by Staff (Not Credited)
A totally mesmerizing battle of the wills between the occasionally charming yet wily Nixon and the increasingly desperate Frost.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Frank Langella and Michael Sheen do not attempt to mimic their characters, but to embody them.
100
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
Morgan finds the right elements of action and character through which to make history leap off the page.
100
Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman
Langella has always been a cerebral actor, one who never gives away all he's thinking. What comes through in this portrayal is how smart Nixon was, whether he's cunningly probing Frost's weaknesses or pitching himself to TV viewers as an avuncular, misunderstood Cold Warrior.
91
The A.V. Club by Nathan Rabin
In a masterful performance, Langella highlights Nixon's oily charm and guile.
91
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Surges with an energy and visual verve that improve the play and enhance the themes of dramatist Peter Morgan's script.
90
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
The result is involving, engrossing cinema -- more thrilling, in fact, than Howard's "The Da Vinci Code" -- filmmaking of a type rarely seen anymore and sorely missed.
90
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
What Ron Howard gets, to a degree that's astonishing in a two-hour film, is the density and complexity, as well as the generous entertainment quotient, of Peter Morgan's screenplay.
88
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Howard and Morgan have transformed this story into something more than an embellished re-telling of recent history. They have shaped a tragedy that is almost Shakespearean in force.
80
Village Voice by J. Hoberman
Frost/Nixon's main attraction is neither its topicality nor its historical value, but Langella's re-creation of his Tony-winning performance.
80
The New Yorker by David Denby
Offers considerable insight into the Nixon mystery, without solving it; the movie is fully absorbing and even, when Nixon falls into a drunken, resentful rage, exciting, but I can't escape the feeling that it carries about it an aura of momentousness that isn't warranted by the events.
80
Newsweek by David Ansen
Frost/Nixon works even better on screen. Director Ron Howard and Morgan, adapting his own play, have both opened up the tale and, with the power of close-ups, made this duel of wits even more intimate and suspenseful.
70
Variety by Todd McCarthy
Frank Langella's meticulous performance will generate the sort of attention that will attract serious filmgoers.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
Less a political movie than a boxing film without the gloves.
50
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
Unsatisfying even if, like me, you're a lifelong aficionado of Nixon-bashing.
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