[Beatty] tries to make Siegel humorous and glamorously suave, but Is defeated by the futility of the enterprise. This paranoid sadist is not a nice guy. He is not even interesting; merely a bully with a few colorful mannerisms.

| Aug 16, 2021

From James Toback's crackling script to Warren Beatty's electric performance as gangster Ben Siegel, Bugsy is so engrossing that you feel uncharitable mentioning that while splendid in individual scenes, Barry Levinson's movie lacks propulsion.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 29, 2014

What finally distinguishes Bugsy from other mob movies is its ever-present sense of the absurd.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 29, 2014

Insouciant and flashy, co-producer Beatty is at his best when evoking the narcissistic, show-business side of Siegel.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 29, 2014

A great deal of the fun of watching this very assured film is seeing with what energetic panache the actor takes on the mantle of the mobster J. Edgar Hoover once called "the most dangerous man in America."

| Oct 29, 2014

The picture belongs, in every sense of the word, to Beatty.

| Oct 29, 2014

Most actors give more contained performances as they get older or else they risk self-parody. Beatty, who has always seemed larger than life, gets even larger with age -- and on him it looks good.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 29, 2014

Warren Beatty delivers some of his best acting in years as Bugsy Siegel, the gangster responsible for the inception of Las Vegas as we now know it.

| Oct 29, 2014

Not just another gangster picture, as some had feared. James Toback`s sparkling script as interpreted by director Barry Levinson and producer-star Warren Beatty is both a rare love story between equals and a portrait of a dreamer.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 29, 2014

Stylish, clever, and fast on its feet, Bugsy is a movie of vast scope and many small pleasures, a lavish, beautifully designed epic that never quite decides what it wants to be.

| Original Score: B | Sep 7, 2011

An absorbing narrative flow and a parade of colorful underworld characters vie for screen time with an unsatisfactory central romance.

| Mar 26, 2009

With a sparklingly witty script (James Toback), classy direction and terrific performances all round, Beatty's return to the fray is his best movie since McCabe and Mrs Miller.

| Jun 24, 2006

Warren Beatty, who is one of the film's co-producers, has found the role of his career in this sly, evasive schemer with the manipulative instincts of a born ladies' man.

Full Review | May 20, 2003

Bugsy is less an indictment of the dark side than a black-comic look at our continuing fascination with it. Even when this powerhouse entertainment trips on its ambitions, you can't shake it off.

| May 12, 2001

For Levinson, Beatty, and Toback this was an important roll of the dice. Looks to me like they come up craps.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 1, 2000

There's a loopy madness in Bugsy. Everyone's either giddy, overly cranky or endearingly deranged.

| Jan 1, 2000

Bugsy, the exuberantly elegiac new Barry Levinson film starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, is a great gangster picture, with all the visceral excitement of a classic mob saga. But that's just its jumping-off point.

| Jan 1, 2000

Bugsy moves with a lightness that belies its strength. It is a movie that vibrates with optimism and passion, with the exuberance of the con-man on his game.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 1, 2000