Gravity 2013

Critics score:
97 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: Believe the hype: Gravity is as jaw-droppingly spectacular as you've heard - magnificent from a technical perspective but also a marvel of controlled acting and precise tone. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: If the film past is dead, Gravity shows us the glory of cinema's future. It thrills on so many levels. And because Cuar‪on is a movie visionary of the highest order, you truly can't beat the view. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: What's astonishing about the film is its hypnotic seamlessness - the way that the director, Alfonso Cuaron, using special effects (and 3D) with a nearly poetic simplicity and command, places us right up there in space along with the people on screen. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: In a little more than 90 minutes [it] rewrites the rules of cinema as we have known them. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A visually enthralling popcorn movie with two big stars (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) that will rivet vast crowds for every moment of its 90-minute running time with not a second wasted. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Accept Gravity as pure, popcorn-munching show business fun and nothing else, and you won't go away disappointed. Leave logic at the concession stand. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: In one form or another, motion pictures have been with us since the middle of the 19th century, but there's never been one like "Gravity." Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Watch this film on the biggest screen you can find, in 3D IMAX if possible - not to be overwhelmed by its noise and effects, but to join its smart, soulful heroine on her incredible journey and to experience the size of its quietness. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: [A] white-knuckle space odyssey, a work of great narrative simplicity and visual complexity ... Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: If nothing else, Gravity makes the case for throwing immense resources at true visionaries; the blockbuster craftsman as adventurer, Cuaron expertly blends the epic with the intimate. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, AV Club: Watching Gravity often feels like watching an especially long prep reel for Star Tours, without ever being allowed to board the ride. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "Gravity" is an amazing movie for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how Alfonso Cuaron tells what seems like a familiar type of story in a way we've never seen. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The movie's an astonishingly detailed, visually painstaking state-of-the-art production that advances what the cinema can show us-even as the human story at its center feels a little thin after a while. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: That rarest of breeds: the intellectual blockbuster. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It's a relief to see an unconventional big-budget studio movie that doesn't hew to the same old pounding action beats, or person-to-person physical violence. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Cuaron and his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, keep the audience in weightless suspension right along with the astronauts. For most of us, Gravity is the closest we will ever get to the real deal. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: An existential action movie that unashamedly embraces the sensation of awe. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Nerve-racking, sentimental and thrilling, Gravity honors terra firma even as it reaches for the stars with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: In the end "Gravity" has only the most basic things to say, but it says them so well and presents them so marvelously that it's a cinematic wonder. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: Yet Gravity also has an emotional and spiritual depth that, like 127 Hours, another film about man versus isolation, transcends what might at first seem a gimmicky plot device. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: This is truly awesome. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: The movie isn't perfect. But it provides a perfect moviegoing experience, and that's almost as good. The second time I went I watched a lot of the faces in the audience, and they looked just as I imagine mine did the first night I saw it: Whoa. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: At once the most realistic and beautifully choreographed film ever set in space, Gravity is a thrillingly realized survival story spiked with interludes of breath-catching tension and startling surprise. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Words can do little to convey the visual astonishment this space opera creates. It is a film whose impact must be experienced in 3-D on a theatrical screen to be fully understood. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: Nearly everything about "Gravity" feels right, from its appropriate but compact running time to its satisfying conclusion. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Gravity is a celebration of the primal pleasure of movies. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: It's a rare combination of jaw-dropping special effects and visual artistry, and it also works as slam-bang entertainment with just two actors and a swift running time of 90 minutes. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Gravity is not a film of ideas, like Kubrick's techno-mystical 2001, but it's an overwhelming physical experience -- a challenge to the senses that engages every kind of dread. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Right from the start, Cuaron aims for the moon - and hits it. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Doctoral theses will be penned on the breath-catchingly realistic, gorgeously choreographed, entirely mesmerizing opening ... Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: If our exploration of space emerged from imagination, science and the spark of inspiration, the extraordinary "Gravity" uses those same tools to craft a movie that might correctly be called a thrill ride with a brain. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: This enthralling tale of survival in space will open up young audiences' eyes to the excitement of out-of-this-world exploration -- and make older audiences remember the wonder they felt at 2001: A Space Odyssey. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A wildly suspenseful zero-g tale of survival 350 miles beyond the ozone layer, Alfonso Cuaron's space saga is emotionally jolting - and physically jolting, too. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Wow. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Gravity into a thing of transcendent beauty and terror. It's more than a movie. It's some kind of miracle. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It strives to bring cinema's past, especially the rip-roaring, edge-of-the-seat thrillers Hollywood used to make, into its technological, weightless, oxygen-free future. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The visual splendor of "Gravity" is more than a matter of execution; it's also one of imagination. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Gravity's great gift to the viewer is that it gives outer space back its beauty, terror, and wonder. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: As the credits roll, you may find yourself thinking about real space launches you've watched, or watching man walk on the moon, and remembering that feeling of awe at how man ever developed the technology to explore space in the first place. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Gravity" is a stratospheric achievement. Not just a futuristic drama, it's also a universally human drama about the need for hope in desperate situations. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Even as it looks to the heavens, "Gravity" is bound to earth, where the beauty is in the details. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: This is one of the most stunning visual treats of the year and one of the most unforgettable thrill rides in recent memory. Read more

Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: A master class in fluid camerawork, bold, unfussy imagery and special effects that put most recent Hollywood blockbusters to shame. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Unfolding as a series of terrifying object lessons in Newtonian physics, the movie lends new meaning to the phrase "spatial geometry." Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Gravity, a weightless ballet and a cold-sweat nightmare, intimates mystery and profundity, with that mixture of beauty and terror that the Romantics called the sublime. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Not since 2001: A Space Odyssey has a film so vividly and realistically transmitted the feeling of being lost in the cosmos. Read more

Todd Gilchrist, TheWrap: A hard-science tale that offers a uniquely poetic portrait of hope and survival, "Gravity" is a both a virtuoso technical achievement and a powerfully visceral cinematic experience. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: This isn't just the best-looking film of the year, it's one of the most awe-inspiring achievements in the history of special-effects cinema. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Cuaron, a magician who brought personality to the Harry Potter series, is after pure, near-experimental spectacle. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Gravity is the kind of enthralling, all-encompassing, giddy cinematic experience that surfaces once in a blue moon. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: I haven't yet fully recovered. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Gravity is a crowd-pleasing version of what scientists and mathematicians are said to experience in their rarefied sphere-a wondrous fusion of faith and science. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "Gravity" must be seen in theaters to be appreciated; the prospect of watching this movie on anything less than a 40-foot screen is tantamount to listening to Beethoven through a tin can and a string. Read more