60
Sophie's Choice is a handsome, doggedly faithful and astoundingly tedious adaptation of William Styron's best-seller.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
20
The picture is completely devoid of cinematic interest, adopting instead a tiresome theatrical aesthetic in which showy monologues are filmed in interminable, usually ill-chosen long takes.
75
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The overall result is a serious though harrowing journey into the dark corners of this century, marked by a compassionate approach and even a fillip of optimism at the end.
90
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
Thanks in large part to Miss Streep's bravura performance, it's a film that casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
The film is a respectable, claustrophobic and slick piece of work, and cinematographer Nestor Almendros' color strategies - Rembrandt-like light at night, lemony tones during the day, desaturated sepia at Auschwitz - are arty to a fault. [14 Dec 1982]
70
Alan J. Pakula’s 1982 adaptation of William Styron’s 1979 novel Sophie’s Choice is one of those films whose great qualities put its lesser elements in sharp relief.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Sophie's Choice is a fine, absorbing, wonderfully acted, heartbreaking movie.