57
Metascore
8 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertRgatime is a loving, beautifully mounted, graceful film that creates its characters with great clarity.
- 88The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jay ScottRagtime itself twinkles with delight - perhaps only an immigrant, and a recent one, could have made this film, which looks squarely at the social problems gnawing at North America but which finds, within them and without them, cause for hope. [20 Nov 1981]
- 80VarietyVarietyThe page-turning joys of E.L. Doctorow's bestselling Ragtime, which dizzily and entertainingly charted a kaleidoscopic vision of a turn-of-century America in the midst of intense social change, have been realized almost completely in Milos Forman's superbly crafted screen adaptation.
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineAmbitious, but only sporadically engaging.
- 60The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyThe movie is sorrowful, funny and beautiful. It is also, finally, very unsatisfactory.
- 60TimeRichard CorlissTimeRichard CorlissForman and Weller have created an impressive but strangely lopsided movie.
- 38Boston GlobeBoston GlobeExcept for the evocative sets and Randy Newman's upbeat musical score, Ragtime is better read than seen. [18 Dec 1981]
- 20Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrWhat's left is a curiously disconnected illustration of American racism, which nevertheless fails to realize the power and irony inherent in its pop-Marxist analysis.