--- title: "Raging Bull: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/raging-bull/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/raging-bull" critics_score: 83 critics_reviews: 14 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." --- # Raging Bull (1980): what the critics said Critics' score 83 from 14 reviews: 13 positive, 1 mixed, 0 negative. Almost every critic recommends Raging Bull, and most do so without much qualification. The praise gathers around two things: Robert De Niro’s performance as Jake La Motta, which the reviews describe as transformative and furious, and the boxing scenes, which several call among the best ever put on film. The black-and-white photography draws repeated notice, as does Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing, which the Los Angeles Times singles out. A number of critics also admire the script for refusing to explain La Motta with tidy psychology. The reservations are few and mostly old. The Hollywood Reporter finds the film slack outside the ring, with an improvised dullness the stylised fights make more obvious, and Variety worries that so repellent a protagonist limits its appeal. The Times, more recently, feels the anger and excess stop it short of five stars. The spread is narrow, and the coolest notices come from the film’s first release; the re-release reviews are warmer almost without exception. ## Financial Times — Danny Leigh Rating ★★★★★. 13 April 2023. The review highlights the film’s resistance to personal arcs and redemption in its portrait of elemental brutality. The restored print allows the blood to still drip from the ropes in this savage Bronx middleweight story. [Read the review](https://www.ft.com/content/bfc387f2-e3fa-425c-a464-41d294ad81b4) ## Empire — Ian Nathan Fi1m's normalised score 95/100 (inferred from the text). 20 January 2006. The review declares Raging Bull everything it is cracked up to be, a peerless imprint of what cinema can aspire to in art, truth and exhaustion. It singles out the contrasting docu-drab and dreamily inventive black-and-white cinematography, along with De Niro's performance, for particular praise. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/raging-bull-review/) ## Slant Magazine Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 July 2022. The critic praises Scorsese’s complex, bruising vision of violence, masculinity, and self-destruction in the film, highlighting its avoidance of reductive psychology and its visceral, subjective boxing sequences and performances. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/raging-bull-4k-uhd-review-martin-scorsese/) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 12 April 2023. The critic finds Scorsese’s 1980 biopic a brutally nihilist tale that remains full of despairing beauty and unforgettable performances. The sheer brio and kinetic energy of the nightmarish boxing scenes are singled out as utterly unique. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/apr/12/raging-bull-review-still-packs-a-punch-like-no-boxing-movie-before-or-since) ## The New York Times — Vincent Canby Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 14 November 1980. Canby calls the film Scorsese's most ambitious and finest work to date, with Robert De Niro delivering a titanic, career-best performance as the inarticulate, furious Jake La Motta. The movie is praised for its lyrical effect amid nonstop physical violence and its intelligent screenplay that refuses easy sociological or psychiatric explanations. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1980/11/14/archives/robert-de-niro-in-raging-bull.html) ## Total Film Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 17 November 2000. The review calls Raging Bull a potent tragedy of a brutal pugilist at war with himself and a truly extraordinary modern classic. It singles out Scorsese's tautly choreographed ring sequences and the performances of De Niro, Pesci and Moriarty. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/raging-bull-review/) ## Los Angeles Times — Sheila Benson Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 5 January 1990. Benson describes the re-release as one of cinema’s most breathtaking films, with its black-and-white perfection, inky shadows, deliberate graininess, and poetic images that fix the Bronx setting in memory. She notes how a decade has shifted audience reactions to the brutish La Motta and praises the brilliant editing by Thelma Schoonmaker. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-01-05-ca-40-story.html) ## The New Yorker — Pauline Kael Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 8 December 1980. Kael views the film as a biography of the prizefight genre and an exploration of movies, violence, and gritty visual rhythm rather than a straightforward rise-and-fall biopic. She highlights Scorsese and De Niro pushing deeper into inarticulate, elemental characters while noting the exact details of 1940s Bronx neighborhoods alongside the lack of specific psychological insights into La Motta. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/12/08/religious-pulp-or-the-incredible-hulk) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 19 December 1980. The critic sees the film as an intense exploration of a man's brute force, anger, grief, and inability to view women beyond a madonna-whore complex, with De Niro and Scorsese fearlessly depicting the protagonist's limited emotional range. He praises the raw portrayal of jealousy, violence, and guilt channeled through boxing and personal relationships. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raging-bull-1980) ## Sight and Sound — Richard Combs Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 1981. The critic examines Raging Bull alongside Cassavetes' Gloria, highlighting Scorsese's expressive, metaphysical approach to gangster and boxing stories rooted in ethnic New York life, Catholic guilt and transcendence. It contrasts this with Cassavetes' more therapeutic, performer-driven realism, noting the film's rigorous realism mixed with total subjectivity and its focus on La Motta's masochistic absorption of punishment. [Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/hell-bronx-richard-combs-reviews-gloria-raging-bull) ## The Times — Kevin Maher Rating ★★★★☆. 14 April 2023. The film is an impassioned work asking huge questions about self-hatred, guilt, the punishment of the human body and the will to survive. It singles out Robert De Niro’s performance as Jake LaMotta for praise while noting the excess and anger make it too much for five stars. [Read the review](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/raging-bull-1980-review-angry-boxing-movie-tackles-big-questions-with-passion-kvm97grsp) ## Variety — Joseph McBride Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 11 November 1980. The review finds the protagonist one of the most repugnant in recent cinema but highlights the boxing sequences as possibly the best ever filmed and the film's capture of a boxer's intensity. It notes the visceral power of the fights alongside the offputting character that may limit broader appeal. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1980/film/reviews/raging-bull-1200424804/) ## The Hollywood Reporter — Ron Pennington Fi1m's normalised score 65/100 (inferred from the text). 10 November 1980. The critic calls it the most unromanticized movie biography ever produced by Hollywood, praising De Niro's brilliant and transformative performance along with the intense, brutal fight sequences. However, the review faults the film for lacking dramatic structure, having a dull improvisational quality outside the fights, and overly stylized techniques that highlight the rest of the film's lack of energy. [Read the review](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/raging-bull-review-1980-movie-850679/) ## Den of Geek — Stuart Anderson Rating 5/5. 1 March 2011. The review calls Raging Bull a remarkable character study of Jake La Motta’s rise and fall, commending De Niro’s transformative performance, the realistic boxing scenes, and strong supporting turns while noting its enduring critical acclaim. [Read the review](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/raging-bull-30th-anniversary-special-edition-blu-ray-review/) --- © 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/raging-bull.md