Million Dollar Baby (2004)

All Critics (227) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (215) | Rotten (21) | DVD (38)

It's impressive, in the sense that a sucker-punch impresses itself on your skull.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

David Edelstein

Slate

Top Critic

It is thoughtful, unfashionable, measured, mostly honest, sometimes clumsy or remote, often exciting, occasionally moving and eventually surprising. It's correct.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

Top Critic

Barely a year after the release of Mystic River, Clint Eastwood delivers a second consecutive drama that fearlessly probes the shadows of human morality without falling back on easy answers.

February 24, 2013

David Germain

Associated Press

Top Critic

Perhaps the director's most touching, most elegiac work yet, Million Dollar Baby is a film that does both the expected and the unexpected, that has the nerve and the will to be as pitiless as it is sentimental.

February 24, 2013 Full Review

Kenneth Turan

Los Angeles Times

Top Critic

Like Eastwood, it's a relic that dazzles you with its footwork, daring and class.

August 1, 2008 Full Review

Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is a masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true.

February 6, 2007 Full Review | Comments (9)

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Top Critic

Violent Oscar winner is inspiring but too intense for kids.

December 26, 2010 Full Review | Comments (3)

Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

Clint Eastwood can do it all.

April 29, 2009 Full Review | Comment (1)

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

"Million Dollar Baby" is a tragic film about an innately paternal man's desperate need to overcome his own emotional traps and the loyal girl who facilitates his growth by her steely will and stubborn drive.

April 18, 2009 Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

This is an actor's piece, and Eastwood, Freeman, and Swank all deliver performances equal to or perhaps greater than any they've done in recent memory.

February 27, 2009 Full Review

Nick Nunziata

CHUD

Million Dollar Baby adds to Clint Eastwood's legacy in ways we might not have expected. It explores emotional terrain as he hasn't done before, and it gives him a kind of role that he has never had before.

February 2, 2009 Full Review

Tony Macklin

Bright Lights Film Journal

Just when you think he should be retiring, Clint Eastwood throws another one-two punch.

November 20, 2008 Full Review

Kit Bowen

Hollywood.com

This is Eastwood's weakest work in years, perhaps because it yokes itself to a hot-button theme instead of a story that resonates.

July 18, 2008 Full Review | Comments (14)

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

A devastating act of mercy for one character may very well cost the soul of another.

February 28, 2008 Full Review

Brandon Fibbs

BrandonFibbs.com

After the somewhat hysterical Mystic River - a flawed work dominated by a powerhouse performance from Sean Penn - this is a far more balanced piece, anchored by three terrific turns and some lean direction from Eastwood.

February 20, 2008 Full Review

James Mottram

Film4

Easily Mr. Eastwood's best film since Unforgiven.

July 14, 2007 Full Review

Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

Million Dollar Baby is a strong contender, but it suffers a TKO in the last round.

March 3, 2007 | Comments (7)

Nell Minow

Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

what's great about Eastwood, is how he turns cliche to cinematic archetype, and throws in a modern twist at the same time

September 10, 2006 Full Review

Joseph Proimakis

Movies for the Masses

• 1. Frankie Dunn: Girlie, tough ain't enough.
  – Submitted by D.j. N (5 months ago)
• 1. Maggie Fitzgerald: She's tough, I can't go inside, I can't get close enough to hit her.
  2. Frankie Dunn: You know why that is?
  3. Maggie Fitzgerald: Why?
  4. Frankie Dunn: Cause she's a better fighter than you are, that's why. She's younger, she's stronger, and she's more experienced. Now, what are you gonna do about it?
  5. Maggie Fitzgerald: [next round starts and Maggie knocks her out inmediatly]
  – Submitted by Gonzalo D (8 months ago)
• 1. Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Don't say that. Maggie walked through that door with nothing buts guts. No chance in the world of being what she needed to be. It was because of you that she was fighting the championship of the world. You did that. People die everyday, Frankie - mopping floors, washing dishes and you know what their last thought is? I never got my shot. Because of you Maggie got her shot. If she dies today you know what her last thought would be? I think I did all right
  – Submitted by Joseph F (16 months ago)
• 1. Frankie Dunn: Mo cuishle. It means my darling. My blood.
  – Submitted by Alejandro O (18 months ago)
• 1. Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: [about Maggie's decision to go by air and back by car] She made her return trip by ambulance.
  – Submitted by Alyssa B (19 months ago)
• 1. Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: Frankie likes to say that boxing is an unnatural act, that everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back... But step back too far and you ain't fighting at all.
  – Submitted by Chad E (20 months ago)

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