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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

Cast

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
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
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
Rolling Stone
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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
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Braveheart opts to turn cowardly, settling for the magnification of Gibson's idol status, forfeiting the complex, more nebulous magnificence of the real Sir William Wallace and virtually excising the strategic brilliance of Robert The Bruce.

January 1, 2000 Comments (6)
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

One of the most spectacular entertainments in years.

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

Mel Gibson's Oscared, bloody Scottish spectacle.

December 14, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
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
Movie Metropolis

A vanity project if ever there was one.

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

A real modern epic.

February 20, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

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

January 14, 2008 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | Comment
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
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 (4)
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)

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

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
Combustible Celluloid

Pure hokum.

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

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)

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's Flick Picks

While the violence is raw, so are the emotions.

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

Audience Reviews for Braveheart

Mel Gibson's monumental masterpiece, of which he is both the leading star and the director, is a sweeping and majestic ode to one of history's most beloved heroes, William Wallace. Each and every scene a pure cinematic delight, this is a motion picture for the ages, that just gets better and more dazzling with time.

June 28, 2007
CloudStrife84
Mike S

Super Reviewer

No doubt an epic film, Braveheart is unnecessarily violent and long and historically incorrect. Nevertheless, Mel Gibson is riveting as William Wallace, the medieval Scottish patriot, the action and drama and romance have a decent balance, and the cinematography is absolutely phenomenal.

December 19, 2011
Raymond Wieser

Super Reviewer

    1. William Wallace: Every man dies, not every man truly lives.
    – Submitted by Corey L (18 days 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 (5 months ago)
    1. William Wallace: It's all for nothing if you don't have freedom.
    – Submitted by Justin K (5 months ago)
    1. Magistrate: The prisoner wishes to say a word.
    2. William Wallace: [shouts loud and long] Freedom!
    – Submitted by Randee L (8 months ago)
    1. William Wallace: They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)

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