The soul of the drama is the conflict that Delilah’s fair-skinned daughter feels between her personal black identity and the dominant white society around her. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 27, 2023

The film remains a conscientious depiction of the bitter realities of race in America.

| Jan 10, 2023

The race angle is treated with so obvious an attempt at tear-jerking that a good part of the Hurst appeal for increased... tolerance is lost in a welter of sentimentality.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 30, 2021

Not so much an imitation as a fake, for life has a way of forcing conclusions and decisions, and this film, which never seems quite sure which way it is going, studiously avoids both.

| Jan 30, 2021

Miss Colbert has never done anything finer or more heart-touching.

| Jan 30, 2021

It is the work of Miss Beavers [and] Fredi Washington that gives the picture its greatest grip on the emotions.

| Jan 30, 2021

This adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel dealing with race conventions lacks the original's pith, is awfully long, and does too much meandering.

| Jan 30, 2021

[Louise Beavers] gives a splendid performance.

| Jan 30, 2021

One of the most meaningful pictures of the year, a vivid account to be remarked about again and again when informal groups start on the motion pictures.

| Jan 30, 2021

In her first co-starring part [Beavers] gives magnificent account of her ability as an actress, drawing Delilah with strong, sure strokes.

| Jan 30, 2021

There is little of popular action in the story, but there is a great deal more of quality than should appeal to the discerning film patrons.

| Apr 30, 2020

It is encouraging to come across a film which treats so controversial a subject so honestly, even though the producers have played for safety by making It the minor theme.

| Apr 30, 2020

Because of the authority with which it is acted and the skill with which Director John Stahl has built up individual episodes, the picture remains an efficient tearjerker, outspoken in its praise of motherlove.

| Oct 21, 2019

Director John Stahl was a notable visual stylist (although this film contains few of his characteristic flourishes) and was possessed of the prime asset of the melodramatist, the ability to take his material seriously and make it play.

| Oct 21, 2019

Despite the sincerity of John M. Stahl's direction, he scarcely manages to conceal the shallowness of the play's ideas, the commonplace nature of its emotions, nor the rubber-stamp quality of its writing.

| Oct 21, 2019

Imitation of Life is a strong picture with an unusual plot.

| Oct 21, 2019

More character study than polemic, [Imitation of Life is] wonderfully warm and witty.

| Jun 24, 2006