A Beautiful Mind (2001)

All Critics (186) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (154) | Rotten (42) | DVD (43)

It isn't the device that's so crude, but the execution, which turns Nash's persecutory demons into nuisances that won't leave us alone.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

Top Critic

Crowe pulls out the stops, but he looks too bullish and controlled for such a pitiable victim.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

Anthony Lane

New Yorker

Top Critic

The result is mainstream moviemaking at its highest, most satisfying level.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

Richard Schickel

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

Consistently engrossing as an unusual character study and as a trip to the mysterious border-crossing between rarified brilliance and madness.

January 28, 2008 Full Review

Todd McCarthy

Variety

Top Critic

Director Ron Howard's deftness in suggesting the subjective experience of Crowe's character, who's later diagnosed with schizophrenia, makes for inspirational narrative, but certain plot points are so reductive.

February 6, 2007 Full Review

Lisa Alspector

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

At its most effective when it seems to lose the plot in a scrambled second act that posits the Cold War as a collective paranoid delusion, the film reverts to type (and to fact) for a sentimental anti-climax.

January 26, 2006 Full Review

Time Out

Top Critic

Russell Crowe is a sensational actor who can apparently do anything he sets his own beautiful mind to, and he brilliantly portrays Nash from college days to retirement age.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

David Sterritt

Christian Science Monitor

Cynics will hate it, but others will rightfully see it as a great cinematic accomplishment which is backed by excellent performances, great direction, a moving score and exquisite cinematography.

January 5, 2012 Full Review

Matthew Pejkovic

Matt's Movie Reviews

Oscar-winning biopic is too intense for tweens.

September 30, 2010 Full Review

Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

Crowe, Goldsman and Howard aren't trying to solicit love or tears for John Nash, as detractors bitterly claimed. "A Beautiful Mind" sought only acknowledgement of the silent, invisible and brave struggle that so many with mental illnesses endure each day.

September 25, 2010 Full Review

Nick Rogers

Suite101.com

A masterpiece.

April 29, 2009 Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

A typical Oscars movie. Solid, middle-brow and worthy.

February 20, 2008 Full Review

Film4

I can't deny how solidly it's crafted, how well-acted, and, wonder of wonders, how intelligently written and directed.

July 23, 2007 Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

I particularly enjoyed the fact that Nash comes across as quite fallible in the film despite his attempts at perfection. His character in the film is as unpredictable as I would expect the real Nash to be.

July 14, 2007 Full Review

Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

Unfortunately, as the picture goes on, the haunting of Nash by figments of his troubled mind becomes a trifle simplistic.

February 6, 2007 Full Review

Philip French

Guardian [UK]

Despite serious omissions from Nash's real-life (homosexuality, anti-Semitism), Ron Howard's middlebrow treament of the subject makes for an enjoybale film largely due to the compelling performances of Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly.

January 26, 2007 Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

If this were fiction, it would be an example of superior storytelling, and it's certainly gripping.

December 30, 2006 Full Review

Adam Smith

Empire Magazine

A pedestrian film with a rudimentary script that forces the actors to create believability where there might otherwise be none.

December 27, 2006 | Comments (4)

Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

It presents itself as a biography of the flesh-and-blood John Nash. And in fact, it is really only a flashy, sentimental Hollywood movie, inspired by a few particular details of the John Nash story.

December 6, 2004 Full Review | Comment (1)

Jeffrey Overstreet

Looking Closer

• 1. John Forbes Nash Jr.: Who decides reason?
  – Submitted by Alex K (5 months ago)
• 1. John Forbes Nash Jr.: What truly is logic?
  – Submitted by Alex K (5 months ago)
• 1. John Forbes Nash Jr.: Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity.
  – Submitted by Alex K (5 months ago)
• 1. John Forbes Nash Jr.: Find a truly original idea. It is the only way I will ever distinguish myself. It is the only way I will ever matter.
  – Submitted by Alex K (5 months ago)
• 1. John Forbes Nash Jr.: [from deleted scene] Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart.
  – Submitted by Galea N (5 months ago)
• 1. John Forbes Nash Jr.: What is work without innovation.
  – Submitted by Amir V (8 months ago)

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