Gritty boxing picture.

| Original Score: B | Nov 12, 2023

Despite the limitations of its script, this story about violent men and the cycles of death and destruction that repeat themselves has dialogue that feels grounded in the real world.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 5, 2022

It is well acted and directed... It's just the script that could have been a little more memorable.

| Original Score: B- | Mar 12, 2019

In each film he makes, Day-Lewis seems to adopt a new persona.

| May 14, 2013

What makes The Boxer as potent as it is are the performances, especially Daniel Day-Lewis' contained powerhouse. His Danny is a closed-off man, shadowboxing with his private demons, who comes painfully, but gloriously, back to life.

| May 14, 2013

An intelligent, provocative piece of cinema, with something quite bold to say in the Irish context.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 14, 2013

A knock-out performance by Daniel Day-Lewis is the highlight of this admirable if rather conventional drama.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 14, 2013

We never figure out, though, what drives Day-Lewis' Danny. We just take it on faith that he's stubborn and sick of violence. The filmmakers don't help much, offering just a twist on the star-crossed lovers story, mixed with standard boxing melodrama.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 14, 2013

The art-house dream-team pairing of Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson amounts to more of a soft jab than a knockout punch.

| Original Score: B | May 14, 2013

Day-Lewis has the ability to make the will to nonviolence look positively volcanic. And Watson, with her 200-watt incandescence, makes longing look radiant.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 14, 2013

In this dull film, poignant characters caught up in histrionics flail with one glove, while much emotional shadowboxing is done with the other.

| May 14, 2013

If The Boxer doesn't quite score a knockout, that's because of such flaws as the too-sketchy development of the character of Maggie's son, who turns out to be pivotal. But the movie carries the day by aiming its strongest punches straight at the heart.

| May 14, 2013

It still packs a knockout punch thanks to Day-Lewis' typically gutsy performance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 14, 2013

With Watson and Day-Lewis you can almost feel the heat, and their situation never feels contrived or artificial.

| May 14, 2013

One of Sheridan's best.

| May 14, 2013

The critic dutifully tabulated each blunt plot point, each refried cliche.. And yet, when Danny's nemesis did something monstrously rotten, the critic was so enraged by the dastardly act that he had to stop himself from spitting his candy.

| May 14, 2013

Though we've seen this unquiet terrain before, this new film about boxing, star-crossed lovers and the Irish Republican Army temporarily gives us fresh eyes.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 14, 2013

The Boxer is very observant about the ways in which women are enlisted in the IRA cause.

| May 14, 2013

The screenplay of The Boxer spends too much time and energy setting up the basic situations of its plot, then does a spotty job of blending the material's personal and political aspects.

| May 14, 2013

This is acting that stands apart from fashionable styles.

| May 14, 2013