The plot’s structuring is odd and nothing’s fleshed out enough for the audience to derive anything significant. It is a somewhat, evenhanded dramatization of true events though (sans the bits towards the end).

| Original Score: 6.7/10 | Jul 26, 2023

It is a heavy series of events for any biographical film to dramatize, and HBO's film... does a crackerjack job of showing just how devastating it was.

| Oct 17, 2019

Paterno attempts to say a lot of things about a lot of different subject matters... None of them are achieved particularly well.

| Nov 5, 2018

The movie takes on an interesting topic but narrows it too much that it misses why the story is interesting and important.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 30, 2018

I don't think that the film gives you a full perspective of what this sex scandal is, how [Paterno] was involved and how Sandusky was involved.

| Sep 8, 2018

Pacino may collect awards for his thoughtful, moving performance, but he can't make the script a unified experience. Paterno is worth watching, but I'd rather see his next role.

| Apr 27, 2018

The Penn State sex-abuse scandal exposed complicity in college sports, but Barry Levinson's drama about the school's legendary football coach only skims the surface of the culture that allowed it happen

| Apr 20, 2018

Brilliant as ever, [Al] Pacino is the master trickster who manages to both demonize and humanize Paterno.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 19, 2018

When something as world-shattering as this scandal comes along, [Al] Pacino deliberately drains his signature verve from Paterno, playing up the weak frailty of an old man relying on his reputation to skate by without scrutiny.

| Original Score: B | Apr 19, 2018

Al Pacino has specialized in playing actual people for HBO films, from Roy Cohen to Phil Spector, Jack Kavorkian and now Joe Paterno, in an understated and effective portrayal of the beloved Penn State coach...

| Apr 16, 2018

It's a film that may not be able to illuminate very much, but thanks to strong performances, what we do know is deeply felt.

| Apr 13, 2018

There's Pacino front and center, delivering a layered, dazed take on Paterno's possibly rehearsed bewilderment, successfully creating a dimensional depiction of a complex individual who became the focal point of a grotesque story.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 12, 2018

This is no lionizing biopic. The film digs into the uncertainties around the Sandusky scandal, addressing the renowned Penn State head coach's willful ignorance.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 11, 2018

Not too creative or moving.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 10, 2018

As a motion picture, Paterno is at odds with itself - playing both as a chamber piece character study and a Spotlight-style investigative journalism procedural - never really finding its true footing.

| Apr 9, 2018

Mr. Levinson lays this out with considerable skill and energy.

| Apr 9, 2018

Where this movie may really lose you, though, is when it asks you to care about what and when Paterno knew of the abuse, or even to feel sorry for him.

| Apr 9, 2018

It speaks to viewers with disparate reactions, but it also speaks to anyone who didn't dig into the scandal at the time by outlining what happens when we are too quick to defend the famous faces instead of those claiming to be victimized by them.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 9, 2018

Unfortunately, no amount of makeup or prosthetic noses can hold [Al] Pacino back for long, and his growl is so loud sometimes that it overpowers the vision of the wounded god Paterno became.

| Apr 9, 2018

Such a brutal referendum on how deflections, euphemisms, and clichés keep us from having to know what victims went through.

| Apr 6, 2018