Frost/Nixon (film) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Reviews of the film were positive. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 92% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 216 reviews, with a weighted average score of 7.9 out of a possible 10. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 80 out of 100.

Critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, commenting that Langella and Sheen "do not attempt to mimic their characters, but to embody them" while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3½ stars, saying that Ron Howard "turned Peter Morgan's stage success into a grabber of a movie laced with tension, stinging wit and potent human drama." Writing for Variety, Todd McCarthy praised Langella's performance in particular, stating, "y the final scenes, Langella has all but disappeared so as to deliver Nixon himself." René Rodríguez of The Miami Herald, however, gave the film two stars and commented that the picture "pales in comparison to Oliver Stone's Nixon when it comes to humanizing the infamous leader" despite writing that the film "faithfully reenacts the events leading up to the historic 1977 interviews." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said, "tories of lost crowns lend themselves to drama, but not necessarily audience-pleasing entertainments, which may explain why Frost/Nixon registers as such a soothing, agreeably amusing experience, more palliative than purgative."