It’s a grave story told with great dignity and superbly played and produced.

| Oct 30, 2023

Army intrigue and courtroom theatrics are just some of the savory ingredients in this compelling film.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 8, 2023

I find it a rather moving Dieterle biopic about injustice, honesty and the value of truth, which deposits its greatest dramatic card in Paul Muni's uplifting performance as the great Émile Zola. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 20, 2023

When it sticks to the Dreyfus Affair, Emile Zola is a film worth noting. It just takes too long to get there, beating around the bush of fascism while sidestepping the spreading threat of Nazism that was growing larger in real life.

| Jun 27, 2023

Joseph Schildkraut… with his exquisite art, pulls out our tears of compassion. [Full review in Spanish]

| Sep 1, 2022

Muni is, in fact, the whole film, with the exception of one small section that Joseph Schildkraut, as Dreyfus, firmly claims for his own. Muni is superb. Every gesture, every line is put over with immense care and artistry.

| Aug 3, 2022

Preliminary adjectives are inadequate and useless in any analysis of Paul Muni's The Life of Emile Zola. Simply call it "the perfect motion picture" and the ground has been covered eloquently.

| Aug 3, 2022

The Life of Emile Zola has that much-over-worked thing called "grandeur" in the true sense of the term. It's an impressive picture that holds interest throughout the hour and 55 minutes that it stays on the screen.

| Aug 3, 2022

[The Life of Emile Zola] quickens the mind and spirit and lifts the cinema to its highest peak of achievement. It is a genuine work of art.

| Aug 3, 2022

The Life of Emile Zola is, considering the many good things in it, a worthy film. But it is not among the best, and in the nature of things it could not be. Zola's characteristic deeds were his books, and a series of books is not a story.

| Aug 3, 2022

"Zola" is a very different kind of biography. It is educational, but primarily it is elevating entertainment of the most desirable variety.

| Aug 3, 2022

Like The Story of Louis Pasteur, though perhaps lacking some of that film's warmth and appeal, "Zola" is a serious, carefully constructed, elaborately produced biography. In addition, it paints a period in colors both somber and brilliant.

| Aug 3, 2022

Should there be any doubt about Hollywood's greatest actor, Mr. Muni stifles such quibbling with his human, dignified, honest portrayal of the French novelist.

| Aug 3, 2022

Superbly acted by one of the screen’s greatest character actors, aided by a splendid cast of fellow players, The Life of Emile Zola... is one of the most important historical dramatic entertainments to come out of Hollywood in recent years.

| Aug 3, 2022

A dignified, powerful, and at times stirring historical drama, brilliantly directed, and superbly acted by Paul Muni, as Zola, the great French writer.

| Aug 3, 2022

It is a markedly superior picture, presented with dignity and skill.

| Aug 3, 2022

This new Muni production is a masterpiece. It is a skillful, intuitive, intensely sympathetic portrayal of a great and eccentric man, with action characterized by mounting suspense and moments of powerful drama.

| Aug 3, 2022

The greatest actor of the cinema gives his greatest portrayal, resulting In one of Hollywood's greatest pictures.

| Aug 3, 2022

This seems more than a motion picture, however magnificent its technical artistry. It is a living document of a great soul, with all his petty human foibles, and the period of French politics and social life on which he impinged.

| Aug 3, 2022

The theme is one of tremendous importance in this day and age -- glorifying a man who dares to challenge bigotry and entrenched selfishness in order to expose injustice and thus to repair that injustice.

| Aug 3, 2022