'Funny Girl’s extravagant production design and flamboyant musical numbers are brought to life in a way that instantly transports you to the Broadway and Hollywood moments of the late '60s.

| Jan 15, 2025

It is the role Streisand was born to play and she nails it, finding the joy, the humor, and the pathos of Brice's story and turning it into pure screen magic.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 10, 2024

Funny Girl endures precisely because of the strength of Streisand’s magnetic performance.

| Nov 27, 2024

It plays just as well in 2024, as it did in 1968 with loads of charm and grace from Streisand’s star-making performance and Wyler’s steady hand and eye in the director’s chair.

| Nov 25, 2024

Some stars shine. This one sparkles.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 14, 2024

It’s remarkable how much of the film is constructed on, and succeeds because of, Streisand’s face and how it is lit and framed.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 28, 2024

William Wyler may have been the perfect choice to center Streisand, for the first time, on the big screen.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 25, 2024

This is a must-see for fans of musicals and Barbra Streisand and as a study of how a successful musical can be transitioned into a film. This is all about Streisand, but a Broadway and Hollywood fairytale about Fanny Brice.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2024

The score remains imprinted on several generations...

| Jun 12, 2023

Though the premise isn’t particularly original or memorable, Streisand’s turn is incredibly fitting.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 22, 2022

[Barbra Streisand] is the best of all possible reasons to see the movie version of the musical. In short, she is sublime -- which saves the film as a whole from suffocating under its own glossy, ill-conceived hugeness.

| Mar 2, 2022

In Barbra Streisand Funny Girl thumps down an ace.

| Jul 16, 2018

It's hard to think of Funny Girl, in fact, apart from Barbra Streisand. She is the life force. Director William Wyler simply drapes the opulent show around her.

| Jan 23, 2018

When she is singing--in a marvelous scene on roller skates--when she throws a line away, or shrugs, or looks funny or sad, she has a power, gentleness and intensity that rather knocks all the props and sets and camera angles on their ear.

| Jan 9, 2018

William Wyler's adaption of the stage musical is transformative for many millennials. Whether wearing a hijab, sporting a yarmulke, or bareheaded, my students embrace Streisand's Brice and the star/character's professional chutzpah & insecurities.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jan 9, 2018

In lesser hands this would fall flat because nothing is written to comfort the supporting players. They are extras with names and blurred faces.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 3, 2017

Dazzling musical romance is long but entertaining.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 15, 2012

Legendary diva Streisand won an Oscar for her performance as legendary Ziegfeld girl Fanny Brice... who else but Babs could have portrayed her so well?... Great film it isn't, but it sure is a helluva lot of fun.

| Nov 19, 2008

Streisand is stunning, but the film is a trial, particularly when the music disappears somewhere around the 90-minute mark and all that's left is leaden melodrama.

| Aug 12, 2008

A fine movie musical and a nice reminder of the time when Streisand was a talent rather than a 'phenomenon'.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 12, 2008