"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" poster art.

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Avg. Critic Score: 68 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 | Claudia Puig

    Though there is plenty of gunplay, this is a wondrously contemplative and poetic saga that offers a fresh and bewitching take on a timeworn genre. Read full review

  • 100
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    The nervy style of this newfangled Western, with its eerie, insinuating score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, is so effective that long after Pitt and Affleck have left the screen, emotional disturbance lingers like gun smoke. Read full review

  • 90
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    One of the best Westerns of the 1970s, which represents the highest possible praise. It's a magnificent throwback to a time when filmmakers found all sorts of ways to refashion Hollywood's oldest and most durable genre. Read full review

  • 88
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Artfully exciting and compulsively watchable even at a butt-numbing 152 minutes, the film makes good on the promise New Zealand writer-director Andrew Dominik showed with "Chopper" in 2000. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Here is another Western in the classical tradition. Read full review

  • 60
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    Andrew Dominik's long and bizarre movie about the American outlaw appears to stick close enough to the facts so that historians won't be able to complain. But it languishes toward torpor. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    This fascinating relationship gets smothered in pointlessly long takes, repetitive scenes, grim Western landscapes and mumbled, heavily accented dialogue. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub

    Ponderous, repetitive and lacking a single rousing action sequence. Read full review

  • 50
    The New York Times | Manohla Dargis

    Mr. Pitt is himself a supernova luminary, of course, and part of the attraction of this film is how his celebrity feeds into that of his character, adding shadings to what is, finally, an overconceptualized if under-intellectualized endeavor. Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    A film whose reach exceeds its grasp. Hugely ambitious and not without moments of success, this indulgent 2 hour and 40 minute epic ends up as unwieldy as its elongated title. It's a movie in love with itself, and few things are more fatal than that. Read full review

View more reviews for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Pitt stars in beautiful -- but brutal -- Western.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that teens may be drawn to this violent, mature Western by star Brad Pitt. Leading up to the titular event, viewers see bleeding wounds and seeping heads, arguments that end in shootouts, fistfights and hostile wrestling, and an intense train robbery. You can also expect some language ("s--t," "pecker," "bitch," etc.), sexual insinuations, cigarette smoking, and hard liquor drinking (the latter are both accurate for the movie's 1880s "Wild West" setting).
  • Families can talk about the enduring appeal of "bad boys." Why do society and the media tend to glorify outlaws like Jesse James? How do you think the way people like James are presented in movies and TV shows differs from how they were in real life? How does the film interpret (and complicate) the definition of what a "hero" is?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: All of the male protagonists are robbers and killers; women serve only as supportive spouses. Jesse is increasingly paranoid, and Bob is selfish and craven.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: The film's frequent violence is awkward rather than exciting, with a focus on its bloody effects. Shootouts are ragged, with many misses and falls, as well as bloody injuries (a couple of overhead shots show bodies with blood pooling from their heads); bullets hit heads, limbs, and chests. Beatings and a shootout during a train robbery. Trying to get information from a boy, Jesse hits him hard and repeatedly. A shootout at the Ford home sends Charlie jumping out the window; Bob shoots Wood in the head. The assassination of Jesse James is long anticipated; after the shooting, his head is shown slamming into the wall, with his body falling to the floor.
  • sex false3 Sex: Men's discussion of "being inside a woman" (with slang references to female genitalia, like "coot") includes reference to a "squaw." Heavy verbal flirting between a man and a married woman. Jesse appears in the tub from the back (no explicit imagery). Sexy feather-fan dance at end of film (no explicit shots, but insinuation as woman teases her male audience).
  • language false3 Language: Some language sprinkled throughout the film, including "s--t," "pecker," "bastard," "bitch." Reference to a "'"N" word' woman."
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Much drinking and cigarette or cigar smoking by men in saloons. Bob appears stumbling drunk in a saloon.
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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