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Braveheart

Braveheart (1995)

tomatometer

79

Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 48
Fresh: 38 | Rotten: 10

Distractingly violent and historically dodgy, Mel Gibson's Braveheart justifies its epic length by delivering enough sweeping action, drama, and romance to match its ambition.

75

Average Rating: 6.7/10
Critic Reviews: 16
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 4

Distractingly violent and historically dodgy, Mel Gibson's Braveheart justifies its epic length by delivering enough sweeping action, drama, and romance to match its ambition.

audience

83

liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 31,195,186

My Rating

Movie Info

Mel Gibson, long-time heartthrob of the silver screen, came into his own as a director with Braveheart, an account of the life and times of medieval Scottish patriot William Wallace and, to a lesser degree, Robert the Bruce's struggle to unify his nation against its English oppressors. The story begins with young Wallace, whose father and brother have been killed fighting the English, being taken into the custody of his uncle, a nationalist and pre-Renaissance renaissance man. He returns twenty

R, 2 hr. 57 min.

Drama, Action & Adventure, Classics

Aug 29, 2000

Paramount Pictures

Braveheart Trailer & Photos

More Trailers and Videos (1)

Cast

Critic Reviews for Braveheart

All Critics (48) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (10) | DVD (41)

Braveheart looks like a true epic -- even if it is both bloody and bloody long.

January 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Newsweek | Comment
Jack Kroll
Newsweek
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A huge, bloody and sprawling epic, Braveheart is the sort of massive vanity piece that would be easy to disparage if it didn't essentially deliver.

January 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Brian Lowry
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Though the film dawdles a bit with the shimmery, dappled love stuff involving Wallace with a Scottish peasant and a French princess, the action will pin you to your seat.

May 12, 2001 Comment
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
Top Critic IconTop Critic

As a filmmaker, [Gibson] lacks the epic gift, but the movie, scripted by Randall (no relation) Wallace, works on a fairly basic level as a hiss-the-English medieval Western.

February 13, 2001 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Peter Rainer
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

One of the most spectacular entertainments in years.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
Caryn James
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's a matter-of-fact grittiness about Braveheart that infects even its occasional touches of mysticism and photogenic romance.

January 1, 2000 Comment
John Hartl
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Mel Gibson's Oscared, bloody Scottish spectacle.

December 14, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Charles Cassady
Common Sense Media

...a big, epic movie on a vast, epic scale, not only brutally violent but brutally long. It's worth it. (Blu-ray Edition)

September 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
John J. Puccio
Movie Metropolis

A vanity project if ever there was one.

March 1, 2008 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comments (8)
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

A real modern epic.

February 20, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment
Film4 Source: Film4

The 'special collector's edition' two-disc version provides a bunch of extras.

January 14, 2008 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | Comment
Brian Webster
Apollo Guide

The only thing missing from this set is the preview for Gibson's next film: Dead Things I Beat with a Mace and Smear Across My Hairy Catholic Chest.

January 4, 2008 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Rob Humanick
Slant Magazine

So inspiring is his message that my own girlfriend channeled it, in the warning I received prior to my reviewing the film: You'd better love it, or I'll disembowel you.

January 4, 2008 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comments (5)
Rob Humanick
Slant Magazine

With a sweeping look, lots of emotion, a classic hero, occasionally corny dialogue and forced romances, Braveheart is a flawed classic.

December 25, 2007 Full Review Source: Movie Views | Comments (2)
Ryan Cracknell
Movie Views Source: Movie Views

At the heart of Mel Gibson's tumultuously entertaining epic is the almost-quaint notion that movie heroics should mean something more than a play for the much-coveted 18-25 box office demographic.

February 10, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Scouts | Comment
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Film Scouts

A massive, sweaty, frequently silly epic that nevertheless delivers enough brute pleasure to pass a rainy afternoon.

February 5, 2007 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

A great big splendorific Hollywood epic that's not exactly original or cliche-free, but fairly satisfying.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Pure hokum.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comments (15)
Geoff Andrew
Time Out Source: Time Out

One of the weakest films to ever win the Best Picture Oscar, Mel Gibson's wannabe historical saga is handsome to look at but shallow and ultra-violent.

December 24, 2005 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comments (29)
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com Source: EmanuelLevy.Com

Gibson hews to a style that is visually elaborate without ever being visually complicated, scraping away the traces of any irony or dimension from every shot, every scene.

March 27, 2004 Full Review Source: Nick's Flick Picks | Comments (13)
Nick Davis
Nick's Flick Picks

While the violence is raw, so are the emotions.

January 11, 2004 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | Comment (1)
Michael Dequina
TheMovieReport.com
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Braveheart

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Mel Gibson seems to work best when in the realm of historical epics. If you need proof of this, seek out his leading role in 2000?s THE PATRIOT, set during the American Revolution, or his grossly underrated 2004 project THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, chronicling the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ. He only

June 14, 2011
spielberg00
Alexander Diminiano

Super Reviewer

long

December 26, 2006
superclerk25
Jason Spencer

Super Reviewer

Braveheart Quotes

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    1. Robert the Bruce: I have nothing. Men fight for me because if they do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and their children. Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk, they fought for William Wallace, and he fights for something that I never had. And I took it from him, when I betrayed him. I saw it in his face on the battlefield and it's tearing me apart.
    2. Robert the Bruce's leprous father: All men betray. All lose heart.
    3. Robert the Bruce: I don't wanna lose heart. I wanna believe as he does.
    – Submitted by Sofia A (5 days ago)
    1. William Wallace: Every man dies, not every man truly lives.
    – Submitted by Corey L (3 months ago)
    1. William Wallace: That's my friend, Irishman. And the answer your question is yes - if you fight for me, you get to kill the English.
    2. Stephen: Excellent!
    – Submitted by Michael C (8 months ago)
    1. William Wallace: It's all for nothing if you don't have freedom.
    – Submitted by Justin K (9 months ago)
    1. Magistrate: The prisoner wishes to say a word.
    2. William Wallace: [shouts loud and long] Freedom!
    – Submitted by Randee L (11 months ago)

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