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| "I've been choked up by a film here and there, but it's been a while since a film put tears in the eyes of this reviewer." |
| (Ross Anthony, HOLLYWOOD REPORT CARD) |
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| "You'll be there, rooting for the lad with a smile - and a tear or two." |
| (Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY ) |
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| "This is three-hankie wonderful." |
| (MaryAnn Johanson, THE FLICK FILOSOPHER) |
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| "Leaves you cheering as you dab your eyes with a Kleenex." |
| (Sean O'Connell, CITYSEARCH) |
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| "It's not often that you overhear someone say with real feeling after the credits have rolled: 'That was a wonderful movie.'" |
| (Jane Sumner, DALLAS MORNING NEWS ) |
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| "There's actually a lot going on in this little movie, and first-time feature director Stephen Daldry... handles all of it deftly." |
| (Michael O'Sullivan, WASHINGTON POST) |
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| "A funny, charming movie. The cast is loveable and believable." |
| (Robert Strohmeyer, FILMCRITIC.COM) |
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| "The movie brims with visual wit." |
| (Mark Caro, CHICAGO TRIBUNE) |
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| “A feel-good movie that you don't have to feel bad about feeling good about. Made by a largely unknown director (Stephen Daldry), and populated with a largely unknown cast, Billy Elliot (originally titled Dancer) delivers the tear-jerking goods, but purposely and consistently undercut in a way that is most refreshing.” |
| (Peter Brunette, Film.com) |
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| “People who see it may feel like dancing out of the theater afterward. Go for it... Part of director Daldry's achievement is that this deeply felt story is often comic but never for a moment cute. It is exhilarating. At one point, Walters says dance is feeling expressed in movement, which is a pretty good definition of motion pictures, too. Billy Elliot is the best-directed film I've seen this year.” |
| (Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle) |
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| "[A] little gem of a movie." |
| (Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE) |
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| "One of those rare movies that earns its feel-good ending without turning a blind eye to the compromises and little sorrows of everyday life." |
| (Steve Murray, COX NEWS SERVICE) |
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| "It has so much heart it'll charm you down to your tippy-toes." |
| ( E! ONLINE) |
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| "Well-written by Lee Hall, smoothly-directed by Daldry and boasting strong performances from all its lead actors." |
| (Bruce Kirkland, TORONTO SUN) |
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| "If British filmmaking means to stage a comeback, it is likely to happen by way of nuanced, character-rich movies like this." |
| (Bill Gallo, NEW TIMES LOS ANGELES) |
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| "When that joy works its way up to his face and Billy finally smiles, the theater lights up with him." |
| (Todd Anthony, SUN- SENTINEL) |
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| "It is the performance and the dancing of young Jamie Bell that supply the soul of this film and turn it into pure movie magic." |
| (Arthur Lazere, CULTUREVULTURE.NET) |
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| "Bell turns in a natural and engaging performance." |
| (Michael Elliott, CROSSWALK.COM) |
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| "Jamie Bell, the irrepressible child actor who plays him, communicates a sense of urgency in the role that commands attention." |
| (John Hartl, SEATTLE TIMES) |
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| "Bell is extraordinary as Billy, the best child actor performance since Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense." |
| (Nell Minow, MOVIE MOM) |
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| "The arc of its story may be as old as the hills, but Daldry and his amazing young star, Jamie Bell, make every moist-eyed moment seem utterly, vitally new." |
| (Matt Wolf, ASSOCIATED PRESS) |
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| "[Bell] makes Billy the angelic urchin joyous in a streetwise, unphony way, and his dancing, which fuses classical ballet rigor with a loose jointed pop showmanship, is electric." |
| (Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY) |
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| "Bell is astonishing, but almost equally startling is Lewis as the father." |
| (David Elliott, SAN DIEGO UNION- TRIBUNE ) |
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| "Wildly invigorating." |
| (Wesley Morris, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER) |
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| "Illustrates how classic storylines, in the right hands, can work over and over again." |
| (Michael Tunison, BOX OFFICE MAGAZINE) |
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| "Features such strong performances and original circumstances that even the most stalwart cynic will likely succumb to its charismatic charm." |
| (Rob Blackwelder, SPLICED ONLINE) |
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| "Behind a triumphant tale of self-discovery is a subtext of anxiety that ultimately enhances what might have been a pretty ordinary film." |
| (Renee Scolaro Rathke, POPMATTERS) |
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| "Billy Elliot has 'movie magic,' that ineffable cinematic sparkle which leaves the audience with a touch more forbearance than they had when they entered the theater." |
| (REEL.COM ) |
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| "A model of purposefulness; a movie rich, but not lost, in background detail and fair-minded in its account of Thatcherite woes to the working class." |
| (Susan Stark, DETROIT NEWS) |
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| "Its dry humor, earthy performances and distinctive take on the clash between art and life help it earn every tear and cheer." |
| (Gene Seymour, NEWSDAY) |
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| "Writer Lee Hall and director Stephen Daldy transform the material into an exhilarating, funny and deeply sad story of growing pains." |
| (Maitland McDonagh, TV GUIDE) |
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| "An indelible portrait of its time and place. And you can dance to it." |
| (Steven Rosen, DENVER POST) |
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| "The best dance film in ages." |
| (Jay Carr, BOSTON GLOBE) |
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| "Real and consequential." |
| (A. O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES) |
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| "Movies that are labeled 'feel-good' often sound as inviting as a Sally Field Oscar acceptance speech, but Billy Elliot, a U.K. import, comes by its sentiment honestly." |
| (Kevin Maynard, MR. SHOWBIZ) |
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| "By setting this intimate conflict against a wider social drama, Daldry makes his portrait of a dancer all the more compelling." |
| (Leslie Camhi, VILLAGE VOICE) |
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| “Intensely moving... Gary Lewis, as Billy's father, embodies paternal stupidity, brutality, and tenderness; Julie Walters makes Billy's grizzled teacher world-weary and just a bit unsympathetic. Jamie Bell's Billy is luminous and wounded; he almost pulls off some spontaneous dance numbers a la Gene Kelly, though they might have worked better in a theatrical setting. But in small, deft strokes, Daldry subtly renders the presence of Billy's dead mother in his imagination, as a mark of his difference from other children, a source of grief and inspiration. His emerging sexuality is also handled with great delicacy—he's friends with a boy who likes to wear dresses and declines a little girl's offer to show him her "fanny," but his coming out as an artist takes pride of place over all other declarations of identity. The deepest issues here concern the sense of family betrayal that often haunts working-class children who embrace artistic vocations. By setting this intimate conflict against a wider social drama, Daldry makes his portrait of a dancer all the more compelling.” |
| ( Leslie Camhi, Village Voice) |
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| “Hold it at arm's length, and it will sound like The Half Monty, yet the actual watching of the thing is very pleasant indeed... Digitally created dinosaurs may astound us for five minutes, but the unvarnished, non-enhanced spectacle of a human being executing a display of physical prowess will always have the power to astonish, and the young Mr. Bell proves this very nicely.” |
| (Robert Horton, Film.com) |
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| "Dazzling in every way, Billy Elliot is one of those films that makes you feel all the richer as a human being. Just like The Full Monty charmed us with its wry humour and engaging characters, Billy Elliot has a similarly uplifting effect. It's simply a knockout. My spine tingled throughout this wonderful film; it pushed every emotional button imaginable for me. Admittedly I was a mess when I left the screening, but what an astonishingly exquisite experience it is. Great story-telling from a subtle yet forceful script, superlative performances, clever editing and great direction by theatre director Stephen Daldry; his extraordinary film debut allows us to discover the story for ourselves in a simple, yet moving way... The characters simply jump from the screen straight into our hearts. Jamie Bell as Billy is a revelation - he is instantly lovable, not in a cute, but in a real, heart-jolting way. The dancing is inspiring, none more so than the performance Billy gives defiantly for the most important audience of all - an audience of one - his father. Poignant, funny and overwhelmingly moving, Billy Elliot is a major triumph, richly deserving the highest accolade." |
| (Louise Keller) |
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| "The story has all the classic elements of finding a way to make your dream come true, of finding your destiny, of being true to yourself, of being brave in the face of pressure... in other words all the elements that Hollywood like to use when baking its cinematic cake. In the hands of the English, these elements acquire a new taste sensation, handled more roughly, more with an eye on the gritty reality of provincial poverty-stricken lives. The only moment this English characteristic slackens is in the turnaround of attitudes by the working class dad and Billy's brother, shifting from bigoted ignorance to enlightened support. Jamie Bell's unfaltering performance, however, convinces us that Billy is capable of engineering such a turnaround in his folks. Julie Walters and indeed all the cast, display the strengths of English character acting at its finest, and the film provides oodles of audience satisfaction. It is both uplifting but profoundly sad at times, and full of insight." |
| (Andrew L. Urban) |
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| “Few films made in Britain today have heroes with aspirations wider than the cinema screen. The great thing about this immensely moving British film is its dedication to success - to transcendent success. No less an unreconstructed Labour figurehead than Ernest Bevin used to lament his compatriots' worst shortcoming - an absence of social aspiration. They can't or won't tap into their latent talents. They prefer to stick in the past, not strike out into the future. Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) can't be faulted on that score. His aspiration is instinctual, not ideological. The minute you see this 11-year-old East Durham miner's son preparing family breakfast in their mean back-to-back, you feel a natural talent coursing like an induction coil through the child who gives it heart and soul. Billy juggles the piping-hot boiled eggs. He catches the toast as it leaps out of the toaster. There is rhythm in every fibre. And it is this energy of his that fires the film like the pilot light in a boiler... Within its human story, the film contains the tragedy of the Anglo-Saxon outlook: its narrow-mindedness and stunted ambitions, its resistance to change, its need to be dragged protesting into the future, its bigotry and violence. It is a film without sex, but about gender. Billy's cross-dressing schoolchum (Stuart Wells) hides his homosexuality as shamefully as Billy at first hides his dancing slippers. Gender, says the film usefully, is never as fixed as prejudice. To hold up this weight of significance, and at the same time remain life-size, would tax a hardened adult player. Jamie Bell manages it flawlessly: you can read his mind in his face, just as you can foresee his career in his body. What a find!” |
| (Alexander Walker, Evening Standard) |
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| “The film that puts the punch back into British cinema.” |
| (Sunday Times) |
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| “Moving, earthy and intelligent.” |
| (Jo Craven, Tatler) |
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| “A no-holds-barred triumph. Those who have lost faith in the British film industry, prepare to have it restored.” |
| (Caroline Westbrook, Empire) |
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, Mrs. Wilkinson: Julie Walters 
, Dad: Gary Lewis 
