Ed WoodMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 70 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
15 Iffy for 15+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    Half-factual, half-fanciful and all funny, this labor of love is also unexpectedly touching. [28 September 1994, Life, p.5D] Read full review

  • 100
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    A comedy of the ridiculous in which the ridiculous turns unexpectedly sublime. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    What Burton has made is a film which celebrates Wood more than it mocks him, and which celebrates, too, the zany spirit of 1950s exploitation films - in which a great title, a has-been star and a lurid ad campaign were enough to get bookings for some of the oddest films ever made. Read full review

  • 80
    Washington Post |

    Making a movie about the life of Ed Wood certainly qualifies as an impossible dream, but Burton has pulled it off with wit, imagination and something amazingly close to grace. Read full review

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Turns out to be a thoroughly entertaining if eccentric piece of business, wacky and amusing in a cheerfully preposterous way. [28 September 1994, Calendar, p.F-1] Read full review

  • 78
    Austin Chronicle | Marc Savlov

    The strangest biographical film ever made is also one of the most charming, melancholy and quirkily humorous films of the year. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Edward Guthmann

    Burton has trouble sustaining the briskness of the first half. But the brilliance of many individual scenes, and the extraordinary performance by Landau, are more than enough to justify this goofy, tender ode to eccentricity. [7 October 1994, Daily Notebook, p.C1] Read full review

  • 70
    Variety |

    Always engaging to watch and often dazzling in its imagination and technique, picture is also a bit distended, and lacking in weight at its center. Read full review

  • 70
    The New York Times | Elvis Mitchell

    If Ed Wood has a major failing, it's the lack of momentum. Wood's career had nowhere to go, and to some extent the film has the same problem. [23 September 1994, p.C34] Read full review

  • 60
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    Burton has evoked the surface of Ed Wood's life, but in a story about a man who loves angora and frilly panties, he has barely unbuttoned Wood's uniform. Read full review

View more reviews for Ed Wood on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Depp-led cult-director bio delves into cross-dressing, kink.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this comedic look at a real-life movie eccentric has strong language and discussions of transvestism, homosexuality, and gender-reassignment surgery (viewers see the cross-dressing, but no surgery). Drinking, smoking, IV-drug use (not seen), and the death of real-life star Bela Lugosi come up in the plot. There's a threatened suicide by gun, and Wood and his cronies engage in unethical behavior to raise funds for their movies. Young viewers who become interested in Ed Wood through this film might learn that Wood's career ended in assorted forms of pornographic media and chronic alcoholism.
  • Families can talk about notorious filmmaker Ed Wood. Does this depiction successfully make him into a hero, or does he come off as pathetic? Would Wood be considered a role model to anyone?
  • Talk about horror movies and their appeal. How are Wood's horror movies different from those in theaters today?
  • What makes a movie "good" or "bad"? How can something be unspeakably terrible and still wildly entertaining?
The good stuff
  • message true2 Positive messages: The movie's plot suggests that artistic creativity (here, filmmaking) has intrinsic value and nobility -- even if you're making poor quality stuff. Despite ludicrous scripts and inept methods, Wood has the same travails, passion, and legitimacy as his idol, Orson Welles. The film suggests that Wood's cross-dressing obsession, combined with his film ambitions, helps him befriend and understand people who would otherwise be outcasts.
  • rolemodels true0 Positive role models: The characters are a motley bunch with a mix of good and bad traits. Ed Wood is ever-upbeat and confident, able to inspire the team around him. He's also an ambitious guy looking out for No. 1; his career-oriented actions are sometimes illegal and usually self-serving. Despite his wretched state (addiction, mood swings, poverty), Bela Lugosi seems to represent a lost era of Tinseltown glamor and class.
What to watch for
  • violence false1 Violence: A suicidal Bela Lugosi brandishes a revolver. Ed is hit with a frying pan in a domestic dispute.
  • sex false3 Sex: Transvestism is a big part of the plot, with talk about sex-change operations ("he had his thing cut off"), female-to-male hormone injections, and similar gender mixtures. Both Bela Lugosi and a little boy lust after a buxom character's "jugs." Topless and scantily clad women in paintings. Actresses shown in low-cut outfits and bras. Ed Wood and his girlfriend live together.
  • language false4 Language: "Screw," "s--t," "f--k," "c--ksucker," "a--hole," "hell," plus "God" and "Jesus" used as exclamations.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: The ailing Bela Lugosi is depicted as a drug addict (injecting narcotics just off camera), a habit he tries to kick -- and gets some unexpected good PR from the scandal. Social and saloon drinking. Characters smoke cigarettes and cigars.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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