Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper

This is no history lesson, but it’s mainstream Hollywood entertainment that respects the history and seems to invite discussion and debate.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

Mr. Ross consulted some of the leading experts in the era...and has done a good job of balancing the factual record with the demands of dramatic storytelling. The result is a riveting visual history lesson, whose occasional didacticism is integral to its power.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

Free State of Jones is an extraordinarily ambitious film, and for that reason, it’s not perfect.

Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman

The movie remains quiet and deliberate, a synonym for “boring” in some minds (though not mine). In the end, it becomes an allegory for the times in which we live.

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

The result is rather a mess, but it’s an honorable one, and very much worth wrestling with.

New York Post by Kyle Smith

Free State of Jones is enticingly difficult to chart. It’s anti-war, anti-plutocracy and anti-racist, but it’s also pro-Bible, pro-gun, anti-tax and sympathetic to the poor whites who usually get tagged as racist. Its hero is an avowed Republican named Newt.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Brad Wheeler

Instead of captivating us with swagger, McConaughey chooses to go grim and dogged. Director Ross does the same.

New York Daily News by Joe Dziemianowicz

The film gets predictable and loses its firm grip a third of the way in. Too bad, since the film directed and co-written by Gary Ross (“The Hunger Games,” “Seabiscuit”) gets off to a bang-up beginning.

The Playlist by Kimber Myers

Everyone here means well and wants to make an epic war film, but it lacks a narrative strong enough to make it essential viewing for those beyond the genre’s fans.

Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

In supporting roles, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Rachel, the equally valiant house slave Newton makes his common-law wife, and Mahershala Ali as Moses, the leader of the renegade slaves, provide some powerful moments.

TheWrap by Robert Abele

That you may learn a good deal about an unusually driven man, but never quite feel emotionally connected to him, means Ross has hit a workmanlike middle, crafting a handsome textbook more than a blood-pumping portrait.

Slant Magazine by Jake Cole

After its bracing opening, the film begins to indulge the worst impulses of well-meaning liberal cinema.

Entertainment Weekly by Joe McGovern

Ross wants to shake up the format­—notably with a few scenes set 85 years after the war—but like so many directors who have tackled ­historical social issues before him, he confuses noble, cornball sermonizing for art.

The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy

A compelling and little-known story of the Civil War period is studiously reduced to a dry and cautious history lesson in Free State of Jones.

Variety by Owen Gleiberman

For all the ravaged surface appeal of McConaughey’s performance, the character is a little too good to be true, but then, that’s just the sort of movie Free State of Jones is. It’s a tale of racial liberation and heroic bloodshed that is designed, at almost every turn, to lift us up to that special place where we can all feel moved by what good liberals we are.

Screen Daily by Tim Grierson

Although occasionally stirring, the film rarely rises above the level of intriguing anecdote, resulting in a deeply drab drama enlivened somewhat by Matthew McConaughey’s empathetic performance.

Consequence by Clint Worthington

On top of trying to be a Big, Important Film, Jones is also meant to be a showcase for McConaughey’s post-Oscar relevance as a dramatic actor, and he turns in a solid but unmemorable lead performance.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

Too robust to sink into the rhythms of a character study, but too financially limited to tell a story that matches the sweep of its director’s vision, Free State of Jones is a film divided against itself, and it cannot stand.