“Flags” and “Iwo Jima” were Mr. Eastwood at his most daring and creative. He made two movies at basically the same time about an historical event from different and previously unknown perspectives. This was an artist at his most insightful and audacious.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 4, 2024

Clint Eastwood has become a serious and excellent director that doesn't shy away from examining difficult and controversial themes with characters who confront complex moral dilemmas... This movie reaffirms his position [Full Review in Spanish]

| Nov 11, 2023

It's a strong, intelligent film - and a deliberately unsatisfying one, since it possesses all the frustrating scrappiness of real life.

| Nov 11, 2023

There is nothing wrong with having good intentions. It is just a shame when those intentions turn a naturally powerful story into a less-than heroic product.

| Nov 11, 2023

Eastwood's landmark movie documents the waste and folly of what they [Bradley, Gagnon and Hayes] went through, from the battle campaign to the marketing campaign. All of it is a tragic story magnificently told.

| Nov 11, 2023

Eastwood has been more interested in breaking down myths and showing us the human cost of violence and conflict. Flags of Our Fathers soberly and intelligently continues that tradition.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 11, 2023

Clint Eastwood returns to Rosenthal's famous photograph in his thoughtful, moving new film, which punctures the myths built around the image and addresses issues unpalatable for the postwar era in which the Wayne movie was made.

| Nov 11, 2023

[Adam] Beach, in particular, has some powerful moments in the film. Eastwood doesn't cut Hayes any slack.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 11, 2023

Flags of Our Fathers is a complex, contemporary take on a battle that happened more than 60 years ago. It is big, brawny filmmaking, but filled with ideas and questions about then and now.

| Original Score: A | Nov 11, 2023

A stunning, sweeping World War II drama that details the facts and the misconceptions surrounding the costly battle for Iwo Jima.

| Original Score: A | Nov 11, 2023

Flags of Our Fathers is much the same as the classic films it proudly echoes - that war is hell, and though some are worth fighting, doing so exacts a huge human cost that cannot be glorified with the mere waving of Old Glory.

| Nov 11, 2023

Flags of Our Fathers is undeniably a major statement, and a commanding one.

| Nov 11, 2023

In [Adam] Beach's excellent performance, he ages quickly, descends into the isolation not just of a shell-shocked veteran who has witness the atrocious heart of modern warfare.

| Nov 11, 2023

Eastwood drains colour from the battle scenes, giving us newsreel ferocity ragged and raw. Unlike Spielberg, Eastwood nerves himself not to restore the colour later, chromatically or emotionally.

| Nov 11, 2023

Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers is a powerful movie. And typical of Eastwood, most of that power comes from what the film doesn't say rather dun what it does.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 10, 2023

Flags of Our Fathers fails as fact or legend. It's woefully incompetent as narrative moviemaking.

| Nov 10, 2023

The scale and technical achievement of such a project will be to Eastwood's lasting credit.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 10, 2023

Eastwood strips away the phoniness of myth-making to discover the harsh, uncomfortable realities beneath. His film is hugely emotional about the experience of warfare, but it is also balanced and rational.

| Nov 10, 2023

Hayes, as portrayed movingly by Adam Beach, is the film's soul.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 10, 2023

Eastwood tells the whole story in an uncommonly full film. The battle scenes are epic, bloody and extraordinary. The scenes of ordinary men thrust into a long, cruel dramatic pageant of heroism are just as extraordinary.

| Nov 10, 2023