The reimagining of The Wiz positions itself as a classic in its own right. Emotion holds through memorable set pieces and legendary performances.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 27, 2024

…it’s the dirty-glitter staging, not the show that’s the problem, not helped by Lumet shooting all the musical sequences from such an extreme distance that we can rarely see the cast’s faces…

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 7, 2024

Whether you love or hate this movie, there is no denying how memorable it truly is and how impactful it has been on the culture of Oz enthusiasts and Black cinema, alike.

| Jul 31, 2023

All that money and all that talent, and nobody really knew what to do with it except the art director.

| Nov 5, 2021

Sidney Lumet's lack of film imagination makes him fail in a genre as imaginative as the musical... The movie completely loses its undeniable appeal. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 7, 2019

It's easy to see why director Sidney Lumet's clunker ranks as one of the most expensive movie flops of all time.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 26, 2019

The Wiz can't quite get it together. Nonetheless, this trip up the yellow-brick road has something to please almost everyone.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 26, 2019

So much wit and talent and energy crowd the screen in this lavishly filmed variant of the Oz story that it is depressing to realize that the production never had a chance.

| Mar 26, 2019

Despite its marvelous personnel and terrific premise, The Wiz is a bungled mess.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 26, 2019

As Ross takes a final star turn against a black background and her tears fall and she lets fly a homily about home, it's easy to understand why Aunt Em wants her out of the house.

| Mar 26, 2019

Director Sidney Lumet has created what amounts to a love letter to the city of New York, which he equates with Oz.

| Mar 26, 2019

Taken on its own terms it gets better as it goes along, and winds up generating a mostly happy experience for those members of the audience who will take its lead and "ease on down" the road.

| Mar 5, 2019

It's good that the Scarecrow is the first traveling companion she meets; Michael Jackson fills the role with humor and warmth.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 16, 2018

If you can take it just as an occasion for the exercise of some real talents, a good time can be had much of the time.

| Apr 11, 2016

Sidney Lumet's spectacular, joyous production of The Wiz generates a mood of wonder and sentimental rapture recalling the arrival of the Mother Ship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

| Dec 18, 2015

It lost its magic.

| Original Score: C+ | May 23, 2011

Sidney Lumet's all-black musical, starring Diana Ross, is a failed effort to transfer the setting of the Judy Graland musical to contempo Manhattan.

| Original Score: C | May 8, 2011

Well, it's nice to see the child-voiced Michael Jackson with a bulbous brown nose in this black American retake of The Wizard Of Oz

| Oct 25, 2008

On the plus side are vast, brilliant sets by Tony Walton, a couple of well-staged show-stoppers, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, and Diana Ross who, as Dorothy, is just gorgeous.

| Sep 28, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 1, 2005