--- title: "All That Jazz: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/all-that-jazz/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/all-that-jazz" critics_score: 71 critics_reviews: 9 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # All That Jazz (1979): what the critics said Critics' score 71 from 9 reviews: 7 positive, 0 mixed, 2 negative. Most critics admire All That Jazz, and the praise settles on Bob Fosse himself: his direction, his choreography, and the nerve of making a musical about his own excess and his own death. The production numbers are singled out again and again, as is the editing, which several reviews credit with the film’s manic energy. Its candour about show business sleaze and a man’s preoccupation with dying is taken as a virtue rather than a confession too far, and Roy Scheider’s performance is noted with approval. The reservations cluster on the ego. Even the admirers concede that Fosse’s self-regard is enormous and that parts of the film make one wince. The two dissenters go further: Variety calls it self-important and finds no explanation of what drives the man beyond vanity, while Time Out judges the whole thing self-indulgent, the dance numbers built in the cutting room and the surreal passages flat. The spread is wide, from outright dismissal to unreserved acclaim. ## Slant Magazine Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 25 August 2014. The Criterion edition confirms the film as a brilliant musical X-ray of showbiz excess and self-destruction. The transfer preserves the seamy, gritty, furious poetry of Fosse's direction and choreography. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/all-that-jazz-bd/) ## The New York Times — Vincent Canby Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 20 December 1979. The film is an uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes and ego, essentially a funny movie that operates on too many levels at once but gives the customers their money's worth. Some of it makes you wince, but a lot of it is great fun, with big beautiful steamy Fosse production numbers and the figure of a man who deserves the attention he affords himself. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/20/archives/the-screen-roy-scheider-stars-in-all-that-jazzpeter-pan-syndrome.html) ## Empire — Kim Newman Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. The critic calls it a fascinating, imaginative and intimate biographical musical drama, a startlingly candid testament from Bob Fosse featuring sensational dancing and eye-popping production numbers. It is praised as an unmistakable classic that stands alongside Cabaret as one of the best musicals of its era. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/jazz-review/) ## Film Comment — Michael Koresky Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). The critic describes the film as a tricky masterpiece and a wrenching autobiographical work, noting its uncommonly heterosexual perspective on a philandering showman in a gay-dominated milieu while praising its matter-of-fact treatment of identity and personal neuroses. [Read the review](https://www.filmcomment.com/queer-now-introduction-1979/) ## Los Angeles Times Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 1 April 2007. Fosse warped the movie musical to his purposes in a way that could never quite be repeated; it is a bravura feat of narcissism and an obsessive biopic that exerts a morbid fascination rather than seeking audience approval, reaching a black-comic peak in the final musical number. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-apr-01-ca-second1-story.html) ## Variety — Variety Staff Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 31 December 1978. It is a self-important, egomaniacal, wonderfully choreographed, often compelling film portraying the energetic life and preoccupation with death of a director-choreographer who suffers a heart attack; Roy Scheider gives a superb performance, but the major flaw is its lack of real explanation of what beyond ego motivates the character. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1978/film/reviews/all-that-jazz-2-1200424549/) ## Time Out — HM Fi1m's normalised score 20/100 (inferred from the text). 22 July 2015. The critic finds the film wretched and self-indulgent, with crass jokes, unfun dance routines assembled in editing, pretentious Fellini-esque moments, and ineffective surreal elements involving open-heart surgery and the Angel of Death. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/all-that-jazz) ## Collider — Adam Chitwood Fi1m's normalised score 95/100 (inferred from the text). 14 September 2014. The critic calls All That Jazz a masterpiece that blends musical, dark comedy, biopic and fantasy elements into a self-portrait of its director. He praises its hypnotic musical numbers, visceral style, and profound rumination on life and death. [Read the review](https://collider.com/all-that-jazz-criterion-blu-ray-review/) ## Den of Geek — David Crow Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 1 October 2015. The critic calls the film a stunning work of art and one of the 1970s’ last masterpieces of cynicism, singling out its manic energy, self-examination of show business sleaze, masterful editing, and unique embrace of death and fatalism. [Read the review](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/all-that-jazz-the-musical-s-closest-brush-with-death/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/all-that-jazz.md