Reviews

• And yet Philadelphia is quite a good film, on its own terms. And for moviegoers with an antipathy to AIDS but an enthusiasm for stars like Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, it may help to broaden understanding of the disease.

  Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times
  
  26 April 2013

• Forgiving its moments of melodrama, Philadelphia makes emotional power punches out of every smile, embrace and tear in its story of a regular guy contracting AIDS and getting booted out of the law firm that once lifted him to glory.

  Peter Stack - The San Francisco Chronicle
  
  26 April 2013

• Phildelphia, with its velvety textures and rhythms and heads-up soundtrack, does a good job of at least putting the topic on the mainstream table. And it's dramatically potent as well as historically important.

  Jay Carr - The Boston Globe
  
  26 April 2013

• Even with its imperfections, Philadelphia is still an entertaining and moving film. Although it preaches, it also forces us to look at ourselves.

  - The Chicago Tribune
  
  26 April 2013

• Philadelphia fails to create complex characters or finely nuanced drama, but it succeeds in its real goal; the education of an audience whose thinking about AIDS and gay life has been shaped by notions of perversion and divine retribution.

  - TV Guide
  
  26 April 2013