87
Metascore
41 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanBrokeback Mountain is that rare thing, a big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center. It's a modern-age Western that turns into a quietly revolutionary love story.
- 100Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversAng Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
- 100The Hollywood ReporterRay BennettThe Hollywood ReporterRay BennettAnne Proulx's 1997 short story in the New Yorker has been masterfully expanded by screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to provide director Lee with his best movie since "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995.
- 90New York Magazine (Vulture)Ken TuckerNew York Magazine (Vulture)Ken TuckerThe remarkable thing director Ang Lee has done is to have made a film that remains firmly in the Western genre while never retreating from its portrayal of a tragic love story.
- 90The New YorkerAnthony LaneThe New YorkerAnthony LaneThis slow and stoic movie, hailed as a gay Western, feels neither gay nor especially Western: it is a study of love under siege.
- 80VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyThis ostensible gay Western is marked by a heightened degree of sensitivity and tact, as well as an outstanding performance from Heath Ledger.
- 80The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsIt allows Lee to draw out a theme that's been present in his films from the start: the notion that repressed passion does no one any good. In Brokeback Mountain, it turns vibrant men ghostly.
- 70TimeRichard SchickelTimeRichard SchickelFor all its brave beginnings and real achievements--its assault on western mythology, its discovery of a subversive sexual honesty in an unexpected locale--Brokeback Mountain finally fails to fully engage our emotions.
- 70Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanThe most straightforward love story--and in some ways the straightest--to come out of Hollywood, at least since "Titanic."
- 40Film ThreatPhil HallFilm ThreatPhil HallThis much-ballyhooed gay cowboy melodrama is an inert disappointment.