The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

All Critics (50) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (14) | DVD (13)

The result is a grand cartoon cathedral, teeming with gargoyles and treachery, hopeless love and tortured lust.

September 2, 2008 Full Review

Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

Surely one of Disney's ugliest and least imaginative efforts.

September 2, 2008 Full Review | Comments (3)

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Disney has created a movie that, like Quasimodo himself, is half formed.

September 2, 2008 Full Review | Comments (4)

John F. Kelly

Washington Post

Top Critic

There is much to admire in Hunchback, not least the risk of doing such a downer of a story at all.

July 22, 2008 Full Review

Jeremy Gerard

Variety

Top Critic

Though Alan Menken's music misses the big tune that would cap Stephen Schwartz's nimble lyrics, it's the thematic sophistication that brings the movie to life, making older children and adults its best audience.

June 24, 2006 Full Review

Trevor Johnston

Time Out

Top Critic

Gorgeous but dark -- not the usual Disney experience.

June 18, 2002 Full Review

Peter Stack

San Francisco Chronicle

Top Critic

Unlike its lighter, child-friendly direct-to-video sequel, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is a mostly adult movie with plenty of dark and somber moments.

March 3, 2013 Full Review

James Plath

Movie Metropolis

Touching Disney tale cheers on the outcasts.

December 8, 2009 Full Review

Joly Herman

Common Sense Media

If not for some hopelessly incompetent and wasted attempts to lighten the mood... it might well be able to compete with Beauty and the Beast as the best film of the Disney Renaissance.

December 1, 2009 Full Review

Tim Brayton

Antagony & Ecstasy

A solid, enjoyable, beautifully animated Disney movie, but one not quite out of the top drawer.

September 2, 2008 Full Review

Empire Magazine

An improvement on 1995's Pocahontas, but not as good as the classics.

September 2, 2008 Full Review

Film4

Considering that Disney couldn't help but trash Victor Hugo's novel in the process of reforming it for tender young sensibilities, this animated adaptation of his Notre Dame de Paris is pricklier and more disturbing than we had any right to expect.

September 2, 2008 Full Review

TV Guide's Movie Guide

Disney has rediscovered the dark magic of the psyche.

September 24, 2007 Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

A inevitável infantilização do clássico de Victor Hugo não compromete o núcleo dramático da história %u2013 e as belíssimas canções e o visual espetacular mais do que compensam as falhas pontuais da adaptação.

February 5, 2006

Pablo Villaca

Cinema em Cena

[A] must see summer movie.

April 9, 2005 Full Review

Robin Clifford

Reeling Reviews

Pretty to look at; dramatically inert.

April 2, 2005

Scott Weinberg

eFilmCritic.com

Beautifully produced Disney, although not in a league with the best

October 7, 2004

James Sanford

Kalamazoo Gazette

the most beautifully animated full-length feature ever to emerge from the Disney studios. The colors are vibrant and the style breathtakingly realistic

August 14, 2004

James Plath

Reel.com

If you want to know what really happened to Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Frollo and Phoebus, try the library.

June 25, 2004 Full Review

Judith Egerton

Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)

• 1. Esmeralda: What are you doing?
  2. Frollo: I was just imagining a rope around your neck.
  3. Esmeralda: I know what you were imagining!
  – Submitted by Ashley N (6 days ago)
• 1. Archdeacon: See, there, the innocent blood you have spilt on the steps of Notre Dame.
  2. Frollo: I am guiltless. She ran, I pursued.
  3. Archdeacon: Now you would add this child's blood to your guilt on the steps of Notre Dame!
  4. Frollo: My conscience is clear!
  5. Archdeacon: You can lie to yourself and your minions, you can claim that you haven't a qualm, but you never can run from nor hide what you've done from the eyes, the very eyes of Notre Dame!
  – Submitted by Typhon Q (4 months ago)
• 1. Frollo: I feel her. I see her. The sun caught in her raven hair is blazing in me out of all control. Like fire. Hellfire. This fire in my skin. This burning desire is turning me to sin.
  – Submitted by Jenna L (6 months ago)
• 1. Phoebus: Speaking of trouble, we should have run into some by now.
  2. Quasimodo: What do you mean?
  3. Phoebus: You know, a guard, a booby trap... [his torchlight promptly goes out, leaving them in darkness] ...or an ambush.
  – Submitted by MarieBella C (6 months ago)
• 1. Frollo: And he shall smite the wicked and *plunge* them into the fiery *pit!*
  – Submitted by Conner A (8 months ago)
• 1. Quasimodo: SANCTUARY!
  – Submitted by Daniel R (8 months ago)

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