Cynthia Erivo puts in a potent turn in the title role.

| Sep 28, 2022

[Harriet] takes historical reality and stretches it over the canvas of an old-fashioned adventure story.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 6, 2019

It has a central performance that carries the drama shoulder-high. It's gripping, and there's a mystical element to it...

| Nov 26, 2019

Ultimately, though, Harriet is impressive, especially given the budget ($17 million).

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 25, 2019

So often, historical films are stale and mired in misery, but Harriet has a rare buoyancy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 25, 2019

It's a rousing piece of film-making from Lemmons.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 21, 2019

The whole package is so sleekly watchable, if risk-averse to a fault, that I can't recall a recent time at the cinema where I learned more by thinking less.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2019

Erivo tears through Harriet, a live wire in the heart of a biography of Harriet Tubman that without her might have risked stateliness.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2019

Erivo's impressive central performance is frequently undercut by an all-too-conventional approach. Hopefully in a few years Tubman can get the definitive biopic she deserves. Sadly, this isn't it.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 19, 2019

The film is dramatized in a way that neither exaggerates nor lessens Harriet's extremely real struggle-no film can tarnish a legacy so profound.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 7, 2019

Thanks to a powerhouse performance from Erivo and stellar direction from filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, biographical drama Harriet frequently lives up to the weight of expectation.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 4, 2019

The pint-sized Erivo captures the pint-sized Tubman's determination and fire. And by focusing on the violence slavery did to families, Lemmons makes us feel its outrages afresh.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 3, 2019

"Harriet" often feels in awe of its subject, like it's staring at her through museum glass. There's a better, bolder story to be told from Tubman's life. "Harriet" is a start, but it never catches fire.

| Original Score: C+ | Nov 3, 2019

Harriet never feels like a fully formed human being with all the doubts and desires that come with that distinction.

| Nov 3, 2019

The crackling historical fiction frames her harrowing rescue missions in fast-paced, quick-cut style.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 2, 2019

[Cynthia Erivo] is really great, but the film is an unfortunately really safe, by-the-numbers biopic.

| Nov 1, 2019

Harriet is so consumed with reverence for the patron saint of Black History Month that it neglects to make her, or any of the supporting characters around her, a real person.

| Nov 1, 2019

"Harriet" is a big, conventional Hollywood bio-pic except for the parts that aren't conventional at all... and the movie as a whole is worthy - a stirring if somewhat ham-fisted telling of a life that needs to be known by all Americans.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 1, 2019

Though "Harriet" falters when it adds increasing amounts of action melodrama to the mix, the truth of Tubman's life, like leading Union soldiers during the Civil War, continues to astonish, as does the performance of the woman who brings her to life.

| Nov 1, 2019

It's a harrowing, heroic story that comes along at a perfect time, told with a mixture of inspiration and adventure, although sadly lacking an undertone of legendary significance the story of Harriet Tubman deserves.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 1, 2019