Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
Hopkins films all the races with suitable elan - since Owens was a sprinter, accomplishing his feats in a matter of seconds, they are relatively easy to dramatize - but you don't leave the theatre with much understanding of how he did it.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
"Race" tells the story of a brave and gifted and determined man who accomplished great feats during a pivotal moment in world history - but it's a by-the-numbers sports biopic with little nuance and a penchant for saccharine-soaked dramatic moments.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
James makes for a charismatic hero, and former "Saturday Night Live" star Sudeikis is a revelation as the steadfast Snyder.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
A keen exploration of how to make a political statement without saying a word, and how best to stay true to one's self while making necessary compromises and calculations.

Name : Ella Taylor / Alias : NPR
A handsomely mounted drama about a pivotal moment in the life of track star Jesse Owens .

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
A wallpaper-thin but sentimentally effective hagiography.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
Making a few admirable attempts to complicate what could have been a standard-issue inspirational sports narrative, "Race" is better than it has to be, but not by too much .

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Race" is the story of Owens in his finest moments, and it succeeds in telling it. Just don't expect more than that.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
A so-so movie about an extraordinary athlete.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"Race" wants so badly to get every last bit of the big picture that it dashes past the little details that actually tell a story. Like an over-trained athlete who pulls a hamstring in the big race, the movie tries to do it all and comes up short.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
Race wants to end, unsurprisingly, on a note of uplift-but for a film with so much dark, unexplored potential, it's an unsatisfying finish line to cross.

Name : Jim Slotek / Alias : Toronto Sun
A glossy, superficial biopic set in a historical context that begs for more, Race can at least claim to be one of the two best movies ever made about Olympic hero/Hitler-embarrasser Jesse Owens.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The film delivers what it promises - an education and a thrill.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
At a time when the Oscars and movies, in general, struggle with finding racial balance, two guys of different skin colors coming together for some sports-movie magic is a fitting and truly welcoming lapping of the competition.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
There are reasons to wish that Race.offered a broader, deeper portrait of the man. Yet, as a celebration and evocation of a stunning moment in time, it's an engrossing and occasionally surprising take on an iconic event in sports history.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
It's a saga of unquenchable spirit and fast-twitch muscles shot in slow-twitch style.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
"Race" reminds us that long before television elevated black sports heroes into gods, there were athletes like Jesse Owens who paved the way.

Name : Christian Holub / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The title is on-the-nose but rather fitting for the story of Jesse Owens, the black track-and-field athlete who stunned the world by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Adolf Hitler's Berlin .

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Director Stephen Hopkins plods when he needs to sprint, but Jesse Owens is a great movie subject. His triumph at the 1936 Olympics left Hitler to suck it up and watch a black man shatter his cuckoo theories of an Aryan master race.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Race is the most timid, lackadaisical movie that could have been made out of potentially classic material.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
"Race" is disappointing in parts, but Stephan James makes for an appealing star .

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Ultimately, it offers history told as a series of passing anecdotes.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
A dull portrait of an extraordinary man.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : Village Voice
Race follows the pattern of so many other sports biopics in which it's white patronage that makes black triumphs possible.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
The bare necessities are there, the performances are competent, and there are some strong moments but Race suffers from a lack of ambition. It's too safe and that quality mutes its impact and limits its ability to be more than a history lesson.

Name : Alan Zilberman / Alias : Washington Post
The script and direction of "Race" are both workmanlike and serve the film well, helping us to see Owens and Snyder as ordinary people with extraordinary gifts.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : New York Daily News
As a Hollywood biography of the great Jesse Owens, it's meant to be epic. But its characters feel flat and unreal. Apart from a few big moments, it's as cheap and false as a 1970s TV flick.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Hopkins, a prolific producer/director of B movies, moves things at a steady pace through the film's two-plus hours, getting many facts right, fudging a few and ignoring some. Those it shows with sensitivity are breathtaking.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
"Race" can't help but engage when it gets to the games. But what's the point of telling Jesse Owens' story if you don't get into what made him tick, and drove his success as an athlete?

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's amazing, the power of drama to make audiences worry about an outcome that is part of the historical record, but "Race" accomplishes just that.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
Directed by Stephen Hopkins from a screenplay by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, "Race" is a well-made biopic about Owens at the Berlin Games and the events leading up to his extraordinary accomplishment.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
Owens's story is certainly one that needs telling, although Race isn't as strong as it could be, even if it does include a larger narrative than one man's rise to greatness.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
Where is Owens in all of this? By the end of Race, we don't know much more about him as an individual than we did when the movie began.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Despite Mulligan bringing her A-game, the film falls short of its potential.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
From a historical perspective, Suffragette is riddled with inaccuracies, but that's less of a problem than its questionable dramatic arc.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Suffragette" is an absorbing, ultimately moving portrait of thwarted ideals that rings all too true today.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
[Mulligan is] a fiercely intelligent performer, and that suits her here. She gives some human weight to Maud's big moments, especially when they veer dangerously close to hokum.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
In minimizing the usual scenes that fill this sort of film - terribly awkward breakfasts at the country house, men wagging their chinwhiskers at each other - Gavron finds room for others.

Name : Karen D'Souza / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Suffragette" urges us to look at the dynamics of gender, class and power then and now with fresh eyes.

Name : Jocelyn Noveck / Alias : Associated Press
In Suffragette, which without [Mulligan] would be a far, far less compelling movie, she doesn't merely entertain us with her skill. She brings to vibrant life an important part of our global history that's easy to forget.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
An intriguing premise dampened by thin characters and a formulaic story.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's a movie that's easier to respect than love, but it is something to respect.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
It riles you up and at times may move you to tears of rage.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
As a period piece, Suffragette captures and preserves the pulse and passion of a past era, yet strengthens the vibrant urgency of a cause that continues to inform the future.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
A picture whose politics prove rather more commendable than its artistry.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
Gavron splits the difference between didactic history lesson and "relatable" storytelling without quite reaching either goal.

Name : Julia Cooper / Alias : Globe and Mail
Mulligan's performance, coupled with a solid script by Abi Morgan, shows us just how much is at stake when a woman decides to wage war.

Name : Stephen Farber / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A rousing, relevant slice of feminist history.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Suffragette is easy to look at, populated by strong actors who move through a world furnished with lovely period detail, but it feels hollow at the centre.

Name : Sasha Stone / Alias : TheWrap
The supporting cast, including Helena Bonham Carter, Romola Garai and Anne-Marie Duff, are all top notch, and a reminder of how few films like this exist anywhere.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
If we now take a woman's right to vote and to hold public office for granted, Suffragette reminds us that it wasn't that long ago when things were different.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
It's a tremendous, awards-worthy performance from Carey Mulligan.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
Suffragette occasionally turns hard truths into platitudes. But the story is inspiring, buoyed by a fine cast, a pointed, important examination of the price paid for a shot at equality.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"Suffragette" derives its considerable intellectual and emotional might from recognizing the symbolic nature of the vote. . That practical view makes the [film] not just an urgent history lesson but also a perceptive human drama.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
Stirring and cleareyed - the best kind of history lesson.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
It depicts an important movement that remains relevant today as a historical obligation of a movie, dutiful and often surprisingly dull.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
It's always compelling; you feel grateful, watching, that this story is being told at all.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Suffragette has the power to shock even those familiar with the early days of the feminist movement it dramatizes.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Suffragette expends its energy selling us on what we already believe rather than examining the way these activists pressed the world into believing it.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Though ably acted and indisputably on the side of the angels, "Suffragette" as directed by Sarah Gavron is more dead-on earnest and schematic than it needs to be.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's a shame that, despite some excellent performances, this urgent, well-intentioned film feels so conventional and stolid.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's a movie with a lot of things to say, but walking out, you feel like you're still waiting for it to say them.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
In a sea of Hollywood escapism, Suffragette - flaws and all - is a movie that matters.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The script, by Abi Morgan, filters out the contextual complexities of politics, and Sarah Gavron's direction reduces difficult situations to simple sentiments.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The movie does well to shine a light on the venerable struggle, but its beam is narrow, and often pallid.

Name : John Anderson / Alias : TIME Magazine
Yes, such things happened. Gavron's touch, though, renders them melodramatic.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
Suffragette, like Maud, is modest in scope and ambition, and is more emotionally affecting for it.

Name : Sarah Bryan Miller / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Morgan's writing is occasionally pedestrian, but the sweep of the story, the performances and Gavron's vision make up for it.

Name : Kristin Tillotson / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Mulligan, in particular, delivers, bringing believability to a role that's quite a stretch, given the transformation her character has to go through from workaday mum to first-wave feminist superhero.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
This period drama shows how awful it was to be a working-class woman at that time. [but] scenes dramatizing the political organizing and protests are less effective, bogged down by pedantic dialogue and historical generalizations.