The AviatorMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 77 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

    Despite the film's sporadic lulls, both director and star are on full beam. The first and third hours of this 20th-century epic are as dazzling as big-scale movies get. Read full review

  • 100
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    This is one of the year's best films. Read full review

  • 100
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    An enormously entertaining slice of biographical drama, The Aviator flies like one of Howard Hughes' record-setting speed airplanes. Read full review

  • 88
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    When it flies, it soars. Read full review

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Tainted or not, Hughes' life was a remarkable one, and, flawed or not, Scorsese's film version deserves the same accolade. Read full review

  • 80
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    Scorsese has crafted a rip-roaringly gorgeous-looking, beautifully acted biographical epic. But while firing on all cylinders, there's something oddly distancing about the picture. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    The Aviator has a hole in its center, and Scorsese fills it the only way he can, with spectacle. He makes The Aviator colorful and entertaining from beginning to end. There are worse things. Read full review

  • 75
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Scorsese, I think, is so invested in making The Aviator upbeat and rousing that the movie never quite reveals, the way that "Kinsey" or "Ray" or "A Beautiful Mind" or even a good E! True Hollywood Story do, how its hero's vision and his grand torments could be flip sides of the same temperament. Read full review

  • 60
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    We may enjoy watching the spectacles, but we don't much care for, or even have a feeling for, the guy in the cockpit. Read full review

  • 60
    The New York Times | Manohla Dargis

    Visually sumptuous if disappointingly hollow account of Hughes's early life. Read full review

View more reviews for The Aviator on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Good but not great, and not for younger kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this movie has some very violent airplane crashes, some causing serious injury. Characters drink, smoke, and use strong language. There are explicit sexual references and situations and some non-sexual nudity. Some audience members may be upset by the scenes involving Hughes' struggles with mental illness.
  • Families can talk about what made Hughes so passionate about his many projects. Why didn't he want people to know he could not hear? Why wouldn't Ava Gardner let him buy anything other than dinner? Families may also want to learn more about obsessive-compulsive disorder. And they may want to consider whether Hughes might have had to get treatment if he had not been surrounded by people who would do whatever he said in order to continue working for him.
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Not an issue
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: Plane crashes, serious injuries, fighting, stunts.
  • sex false3 Sex: Sexual references and situations, non-sexual nudity.
  • language false3 Language: Brief strong language.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false0 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Drinking, smoking.
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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