"Martin Scorsese's love of the movie medium shines through almost every frame of HUGO, which culminates in a creation -- a fascinating re-creation -- that could only have been achieved by a filmmaker with all of the medium's resources at his command."
Wall Street Journal (11/25/2011)
4 stars out of 4 -- "HUGO is unlike any other film Martin Scorsese has ever made, and yet possibly the closest to his heart: a big-budget, family epic in 3-D, and in some ways, a mirror of his own life."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (11/18/2011)
"A passionate brief for film preservation wrapped in a fanciful tale of childhood intrigue and adventure, HUGO dazzlingly conjoins the earliest days of cinema with the very latest big-screen technology."
Hollywood Reporter - Todd McCarthy (11/17/2011)
"[A]n enchantment from Martin Scorsese....It’s serious, beautiful, wise to the absurdity of life and in the embrace of a piercing longing."
New York Times - Manohla Dargis (11/23/2011)
"[T]he manner in which the film blends the tale of an imperiled boy and the history of cinema makes for an ambitious and fanciful ride."
USA Today - Claudia Puig (11/20/2011)
5 stars out of 5 -- "Magical and imaginative, this eye-popping masterpiece from director Martin Scorsese will transport audiences to a place they won't believe."
Box Office - Pete Hammond (11/21/2011)
"[W]ith its beautiful panoramic shots of 1930s Paris, the director's visually thrilling HUGO has real moments of 3-D magic."
Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan (11/23/2011)
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "HUGO will take your breath away. It truly is the stuff that dreams are made of."
Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (12/08/2011)
"[HUGO is] art that uses the most advanced of 3-D technology to sing a song of love to the movies, from the very dawn of the medium."
Entertainment Weekly - Lisa Schwarzbaum (12/02/2011)
"It’s a complex fusion of film history and personal history, filled with dazzling embellishments and unabashed sentiment about the glories of cinema." -- Grade: A-
A.V. Club - Scott Tobias (11/22/2011)
3 stars out of 4 -- "With its gorgeous sets and superb camerawork by Robert Richardson, HUGO splashes across the screen with elegant, visually vibrant flair..."
Washington Post (11/23/2011)
"With HUGO Scorsese forges a connection between past and present, enlisting newish 3-D technology in the service of honoring all the things movies can mean to us....HUGO states, in its adamant, straightforward poetry, that old things do matter."
Movieline - Stephanie Zacharek (11/23/2011)
4 stars out of 5 -- "[W]hat emerges is wonderful: an enchanting, funny, heartfelt love letter to French film pioneer Georges Melies -- and to cinema itself."
Total Film - Rob James (02/01/2012)
"HUGO is certainly a vivid concoction, beginning with an epic swoop into and through a bustling, smoke-wreathed Montparnasse station....HUGO's characters invoke cinema's magic and wonder..."
Sight and Sound - Andrew Osmond (02/01/2012)