Ray: Critic Reviews

90%

MovieWeb: 0 reviews

81%

RottenTomatoes: 203 reviews

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Rick Kisonak MovieWeb (Top Critic)

60

Full Review » 7 years ago
Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly (Top Critic)

84

Ray is the rare Hollywood biopic that does justice to the heroism, as well as the demons, of an American genius.
Full Review » 8 years ago
A.O. Scott New York Times (Top Critic)

80

Taylor Hackford's biography of Ray Charles is a potent and invigorating portrait of genius, thanks to Jamie Foxx's performance and to the music of Ray Charles himself.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Mike Clark USA Today (Top Critic)

88

To any poor soul who thinks Foxx wasn't indispensable to this movie: Hit the road, Jack.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Teresa Wiltz Washington Post (Top Critic)

To describe Foxx's performance here is to gush, and so gush we will.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Desson Thomson Washington Post (Top Critic)

Foxx does what he's supposed to. He steals his own show.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Ty Burr Boston Globe (Top Critic)

63

Foxx is not at fault here -- with Ray, he arrives at the front ranks of American film actors -- but the filmmakers' need to bend biography until it assumes triumphal shape is.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Michael Atkinson Village Voice (Top Critic)

Ray is so reflexive that it often seems to be about the procedural mechanics of biopics.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Jack Mathews New York Daily News (Top Critic)

88

It is in Ray's many music sequences that Hackford's direction is most confident.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Eric Harrison Houston Chronicle (Top Critic)

100

What can Ray tell us about such a familiar figure? A Lot.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Philip Wuntch Dallas Morning News (Top Critic)

84

Mr. Foxx's performance captures each nuance of character. His portrayal is an exalting tribute to a flawed, fascinating musical icon.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Peter Rainer New York Magazine (Top Critic)

Sure, it's the Jamie Foxx breakout role. But the movie around it is so systematically 'inspirational' that it comes perilously close to sabotaging the breakout.
Full Review » 8 years ago
David Denby New Yorker (Top Critic)

Vibrantly intelligent and tough-minded.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times (Top Critic)

100

The movie would be worth seeing simply for the sound of the music and the sight of Jamie Foxx performing it. That it looks deeper and gives us a sense of the man himself is what makes it special.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Michael Wilmington Chicago Tribune (Top Critic)

100

Ray is a fit tribute to an entertainer who, no matter what hate or hardship threw in his way or how many mistakes he made, we can't stop loving.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Steven Rea Philadelphia Inquirer (Top Critic)

63

It's a shame about Ray, because Foxx is trapped in a movie that takes the music icon's unique story and turns it into cheesy, sentimental American Dream cliches.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Colin Covert Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top Critic)

75

Despite a plodding, mechanical approach to dramatizing his life, Ray occasionally hits peaks of energy and delight worthy of his finest songs.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Tom Long Detroit News (Top Critic)

59

The music numbers are lively, the supporting cast solid, and the direction by Taylor Hackford is fully efficient.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Bill Muller Arizona Republic (Top Critic)

100

Making a movie about anyone's life requires a director to make choices, and Hackford wasn't trying for a painstaking re-creation. Instead, he chose to focus -- like Charles himself -- on the soul.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Rex Reed New York Observer (Top Critic)

Jamie Foxx's all-encompassing performance in the title role more than justifies the early Oscar gossip it has generated.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Andrew Sarris New York Observer (Top Critic)

Eminently worth seeing.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Todd McCarthy Variety (Top Critic)

A rangy, straightforward and entirely engrossing biopic.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Lou Lumenick New York Post (Top Critic)

88

Jamie Foxx should start clearing some space on his mantle -- his extraordinary, transcendent performance as music legend Ray Charles in the exuberant Ray is the one to beat for Best Actor come Oscar night.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Jay Boyar Orlando Sentinel (Top Critic)

80

Foxx helps us to truly understand how much Charles' blindness allows him to achieve, especially when combined with an innate wiliness.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Geoff Pevere Toronto Star (Top Critic)

60

A sometimes wobbly blend of the ordinary and the amazing, Ray is nevertheless entirely engaging because of a remarkable central performance and a smartly lived-up-to promise.
Full Review » 8 years ago