Past Movie Reviews/Reactions

December 28, 2007 4:00 PM

Are there good online resources where you can go to find out how movies were received when they came out? Collections of criticism and/or public reaction?
posted by hermitosis to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

rottentomatoes is a good source for collected criticism; I'm not sure how far back their database goes but they're the first place I turn to. Not sure about public reaction-type sites.
posted by pdb at 4:08 PM on December 28, 2007

Response by poster: Okay, I wasn't clear. I mean like in the PAST. Criticism and reaction from 1973 when "The Wicker Man" came out. What people had to say about "Fatal Attraction" THEN. Not movies in the recent past, and not what they are saying now about any of them.
posted by hermitosis at 4:11 PM on December 28, 2007

IMDB has an "external reviews" link for the films listed. For instance Wizard of Oz has a link to a review from the 1949 reissue that was published in Time. Specifically for Wicker Man there is a Variety link from 73.
posted by FlamingBore at 4:16 PM on December 28, 2007

The NYT movie reviews go back pretty far. This list of Top 1,000 Films has some dating from the 30s.
posted by occhiblu at 4:18 PM on December 28, 2007

The New York Times has archived of all of its movie reviews back to 1960.
posted by triggerfinger at 4:20 PM on December 28, 2007

Roger Ebert's reviews go back pretty far. I just finished reading his review of "Hour of the Wolf" from 1968, moments ago.
posted by fire&wings at 4:22 PM on December 28, 2007

Metacritic is useful, but only goes back a few years.
posted by Muffpub at 4:36 PM on December 28, 2007

Movie Review Query Engine
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:21 PM on December 28, 2007

Variety has all of its old film reviews archived in hardcopy as Variety Film Reviews (they've been digitizing everything on their site, though); a decent-sized college library should have a run. See also Film Review Annual. The Magill's series on cinema includes summaries of contemporary reception, IIRC.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:36 PM on December 28, 2007