As Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman is in complete control of his effects... No other actor has the ability to laugh at his own jokes and be so appallingly funny.

| Aug 1, 2018

It's the acting that sings, especially when Hoffman duets with luminous Catherine Keener, the lady with the loveliest laugh in film. Hoffman's writer is a self-serving egoist; Keener's a restrained, wise soul.

| Jan 16, 2018

Unfortunately, by the end of it, Capote isn't the only one who wants to turn to drink.

| Sep 26, 2017

Miller and Futterman underscore the idea that what Capote's achievement does to the story of Hickock and Smith and the Clutter killings is to remove it from the actual world and place it in a literary one.

| Feb 29, 2016

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 1, 2006

Capote is a cool and polished hall of mirrors reflecting the ways in which Truman Capote came to write (and be written by) In Cold Blood.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2006

[Hoffman's] performance is undeniably great. Everything else -- solid, satisfying though it may be -- falls short of that greatness.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 30, 2005

Hoffman goes beyond impersonation to something close to possession.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Oct 29, 2005

Skillfully and economically put together.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 29, 2005

The almost perfectly realized Capote -- stumbling only in the lack of shading it gives Keener's and Greenwood's characters -- offers a sobering glimpse at what the author had to give up of his soul to achieve his success.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2005

It's a fully realized look at a time and place as well as a riveting study of career obsessions warring with a sense of justice.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2005

I came in expecting Hoffman's tour de force and left with a fuller appreciation of the quiet yet lethal film around him. Lethal, because what it says about the writer's craft, about what often gets destroyed in the name of creation.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2005

It is complex and thoughtful and tragic in the end. And it is certainly one of the best movies of the year.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Oct 28, 2005

The best movie about journalism since All the President's Men, and one of the best films about writing ever made.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 28, 2005

This spare, uncompromising portrait not only examines what drove the author but delves into the ethics of journalists who identify with their subjects, or pretend to, in order to report their stories.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 27, 2005

The genius of the film, besides Hoffman's stunning performance, is that it knows exactly how much is enough. It never overplays, lingers or punches up.

| Oct 21, 2005

The great strength of Miller's film -- aside from Hoffman's brilliant portrayal -- is that it both tells the story behind Capote's masterpiece, the true-crime tale In Cold Blood, and serves as an homage to it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 21, 2005

Engages both the practical and the moral implications of Capote's achievement.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 21, 2005

Hoffman and company make Capote well worth seeing. What makes the movie important is the way Capote exposes the work of journalism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 21, 2005

Capote is a film of uncommon strength and insight.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 21, 2005