Blu-rays, DVDs & more
eBay affliate link
Art of the Movies
Buy posters on MoviePoster.com
IMDb
Flags of Our Fathers movie stills
Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: If Flags of Our Fathers lacks human dimension, though, it certainly succeeds as an exploration of the nature of heroism. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Once this World War II drama finds its footing -- and much of the film goes by before it does - it's extremely moving. At the end, a flag dances quietly in a whispering breeze, celebrating the film's real-life heroes as eloquently as any words. Read more
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: There's a tremendous amount of material here, and the script covers too much of it, often confusingly. Read more
Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Consistently the film is, while not exactly patriotic, at least respectful. And even though it focuses on a battle and a war that took place some 60 years ago, it remains all too resonant and relevant today. Read more
David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: [Flags] fits into Eastwood's late-in-life agenda -- to make violence, even in self-defense, seem soul-killing, and to expose the gulf between reality and myth. After this, how can we ever again make our peace with the iconography of war? Read more
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: This is underimagined and so thesis ridden that it's nearly over before it starts. Read more
Joanne Kaufman, Wall Street Journal: His is a deeply affecting account, admittedly a sometimes muddy one, of the band of brothers in THE iconic photograph of World War II. Read more
Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Flags is classic Eastwood, filmed with weighty purpose and, often, skilled precision. Read more
Scott Tobias, AV Club: Clint Eastwood's Flags Of Our Fathers seems like a potent piece of revisionist history, boldly examining what heroism really means and how it can be manufactured for the "greater good." Read more
Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: You could argue that the story is as much about the aftermath as the battle, but Eastwood still jumps around too much. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's a monumental subject, and this heartsick but diffuse movie only occasionally glimpses its entirety. Read more
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: His sad true story wrings you out emotionally because it's concerned with both the deaths of young men in battle and what happens when the needs of those who survive clash with what society expects and politics demands. Read more
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Flags of Our Fathers may well be an accurate depiction of war-zone tumult and its psychic wounds, but that does not make for a cogent narrative. Read more
Tom Charity, CNN.com: The full weight of a lifetime's experience has been brought to bear in the unobtrusive staging, the delicate score (by Eastwood himself), and a thoughtful, honest accounting of World War II's bloodiest and most iconic battle. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Clearly Eastwood wants the story of what happened to these men to resonate as much for our own era as for theirs. It's a movie about the toll that heroism extracts in a wartime culture ready-made for heroes. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Some movies and their makers are essential to our understanding of ourselves. Eastwood has become such a director. With Flags, he once again proves he is filmmaker for what ails us but also for what can make us extraordinary. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: There's some slight, indefinable lack to Flags of Our Fathers, some piece of missing brimstone that keeps it from setting the heart afire, leaving it a wholly admirable piece of filmmaking, but nothing more. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: In Flags of Our Fathers, Eastwood is here to tell us that the reality of World War II was scarier and darker than any inspirational photograph. Read more
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Clint Eastwood has played his share of heroes in the movies. Yet when he directs, his films tend to look at the American legend-making machinery through a critical, squinting eye. Read more
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Flags of Our Fathers is as handsome and gutsy as we want all our soldiers to be. That they can't always live up to our needs has more to do with us than with them. Read more
Jan Stuart, Newsday: As a storyteller, Eastwood has rarely seen a period that he couldn't transform into an ellipsis or exclamation mark. Read more
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: The cliches undermine the power of the story. Read more
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: In his no-nonsense style, the 76-year-old filmmaker is merely telling the story he was given. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: [Captures] the spirit of our time with its mixture of cynicism and idealism, irony and conviction, satiric skepticism and red-blooded patriotism. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Symbols can be moving and powerful summations of feelings. But they should never take the place of the truth. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: At its best, Flags of Our Fathers is eye opening and though provoking. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Eastwood's two-film project is one of the most visionary of all efforts to depict the reality and meaning of battle. Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The flaws in Flags of Our Fathers are at least partly attributable to Eastwood's attempts to do too much. Still, even when he overreaches, he somehow hits the mark. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Flags of Our Fathers is as painstaking as a documentary but without the satisfaction of a documentary or the impact of a drama. Read more
Dana Stevens, Slate: It feels disrespectful to say it, but this kind of war movie, like war itself, is starting to feel sickeningly familiar. Read more
Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: An American masterpiece. It is a searing and powerful work from a 76-year-old artist who remains at the top of his game. Read more
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: The case is strong; it's the casing, the film, that is uneven and redundant. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: If the larger vision in Flags is somewhat out of focus, there are many small glimpses and grace notes that show Eastwood's well-developed sense of the particular in revealing a larger truth. Read more
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: In Flags of Our Fathers, the story behind that Iwo Jima image, Clint Eastwood has crafted a bold and meticulous epic. Read more
Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Here, the feelings run very deep, and dark as dried blood, with Clint aware that some things don't need to be said and others shouldn't be shown. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: It is one of the year's best films and perhaps the finest modern film about World War II. Read more
Todd McCarthy, Variety: A pointed exploration of heroism -- in its actual and in its trumped-up, officially useful forms -- the picture welds a powerful account of the battle of Iwo Jima... with an ironic and ultimately sad look at its aftermath for three key survivors. Read more
Scott Foundas, Village Voice: With Flags, Eastwood has made one of his best films -- a searching, morally complex deconstruction of the Greatest Generation that is nevertheless rich in the sensitivity to human frailty that has become his signature as a filmmaker. Read more
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Flags of Our Fathers stands with the best movies of this young century and the old one that preceded it: It's passionate, honest, unflinching, gripping, and it pays respects. Read more