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Avg. Critic Score: 71 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
    San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Stack

    Director Oliver Stone has fashioned in JFK a riveting, dramatic and disturbing look at one of the great whodunits of history. [20 Dec 1991] Read full review

  • 100
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Stone and his editors, Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia, have somehow triumphed over the tumult of material here and made it work - made it grip and disturb us. Read full review

  • 91
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    [Stone's] filmmaking is so supple and alive, his obsession with the visual aspect of history so electrifying, that JFK practically roots itself in your imagination. Read full review

  • 90
    Washington Post | Rita Kempley

    JFK is Stone's best and most emotional film since "Platoon." Read full review

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Disturbing, infuriating yet undeniably effective, less a motion picture than an impassioned. [20 Dec 1991] Read full review

  • 80
    Variety |

    This massive, never-boring political thriller, which most closely resembles Costa-Gavras' Z in style and impact. Read full review

  • 80
    Washington Post |

    Stone creates a riveting marriage of fact and fiction, hypothesis and empirical proof in the edge-of-the-seat spirit of a conspiracy thriller. Read full review

  • 63
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    The movie is often tremendously exciting. Read full review

  • 63
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    JFK is provocative, a technical primer and an ensemble treat with unusually well- realized star cameos. [20 Dec 1991] Read full review

  • 60
    The New York Times | Vincent Canby

    The movie, which is simultaneously arrogant and timorous, has been unable to separate the important material from the merely colorful. Read full review

View more reviews for JFK on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Politician makes case for JFK murder as conspiracy.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that in its attempt to convince the audience (and the world) that President Kennedy was not killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, this film shows disturbing footage of the actual shooting over and over again, sometimes close-up, sometimes in slow-motion, heightening the effects of the bullets. Other scenes show brutal beatings, dead bodies, and a re-creation of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. Language throughout is coarse, filled with sexual expletives and racial and homosexual insults. There are party scenes that show licentious gay behavior. A stripper is briefly seen dancing suggestively while nearly nude.
  • Families can talk about an art form, in this case filmmaking, used as a powerful political tool. Was JFK successful at provoking thought about President Kennedy's assassination? What tools could you use to further verify or invalidate the film's point of view? Have you seen other movies that advocate a particular cause, or present a controversial issue? Other works of art (i.e. music, painting, literature)?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Some of those in whom we trust (law enforcement, government officials) are shown to be dishonest and self-serving. There are scenes of sordid homosexual behavior without any moderate gay characters to balance that portrayal.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Footage of President Kennedy's assassination from many angles repeatedly; Lee Harvey Oswald's killing is re-created; woman thrown from car, elderly man being beaten; rough arrests by police officers, dead bodies shown in a variety of poses, quick glimpse of machete used as a weapon; some domestic violence.
  • sex false3 Sex: Kissing and playful sexuality between husband and wife; some passionate kissing; suggestively dancing strippers with pasties in club scene, homosexual revelry bordering on deviant in several sequences.
  • language false5 Language: Rough language throughout: continuous use of all forms of "f--k,"" bastard," "hell," "assh---," s--t"; many derogatory terms for homosexual; racial epithets, including the "n" word.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Social drinking throughout; some scenes of heavy drinking, drunkenness, hints of drug use, particularly as part of homosexual partying. Smoking in many scenes as was more prevalent in 1960s: cigarettes, cigars, pipe.
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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