Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
At the last minute, "Cake" becomes a film not about chronic pain, but a different subject entirely, and one about which it doesn't have all that much new to say.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
For all the pain, grief, sadness and suicide that layers Cake, it is a serious treat to see the actress stretch herself. Hopefully this film won't turn out to be a single slice.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Nothing about Cake is remotely tempting or sweet.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The movie is actually smart about the seriousness of grief without being oppressive itself. And [Aniston's] performance is equally intelligent.

Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Los Angeles Times
It's a letdown that the film itself, written by Patrick Tobin and directed by Daniel Barnz, doesn't take half the chances its leading lady does and is content to paddle around the shallows rather than plunge into the deep end.

Name : Jake Coyle / Alias : Associated Press
Eastwood moves slowly to the landing but gives it its full due. Filmed on IMAX, his big, clear images nevertheless remain somber - as does Eastwood's own quiet score - in the big, awaited moment.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Hanks does an admirable job of showing Sully's humiliating stress while his reputation was being challenged, with the first-rate support of a cast that includes Laura Linney as his wife, and Jamey Sheridan and Anna Gunn as his surly inquisitors.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : TheWrap
There's a lively, hard-to-ignore subtext here, wherein an 86-year-old classicist filmmaker tells the story of an experienced captain, still alive because of his confident human instincts, under threat by an industry's over-reliance on computer simulation.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Like Sully, Hanks makes the impossible seem effortless. Listen up, Oscar. Hanks and director Eastwood deserve the three words Sully prizes most: Job well done.

Name : Mara Reinstein / Alias : Us Weekly
Watching that airplane land on the Hudson River is a heart-stopping wonder. But the entire ordeal lasted just 208 seconds. The movie is 96 minutes.

Name : Brian Lowry / Alias : CNN.com
Eastwood has delivered a no-frills affair, almost to a fault. A brisk 96 minutes, the movie is workmanlike in its approach, yet still manages to be stirring thanks to the subject matter.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
There's a good idea for a movie here. In fact, there are two. But the movie itself never quite takes off.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's an effectively thrilling story of quietly unassuming, can-do American heroism-the kind, sadly, we don't get to witness much these days.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
The event itself remains a stunner, but Clint Eastwood's somewhat drab drama sheds no new light on the media-shy pilot.

Name : Will Leitch / Alias : The New Republic
The only real reason we care about Sully is what happened in that plane. In that regard, and only that regard, Sully absolutely delivers.

Name : Katie Walsh / Alias : Tribune News Service
Good people doing their jobs thoughtfully and at the height of their abilities, working together under unprecedented and extraordinary circumstances. Sometimes all of those things come together to create a miracle, and "Sully" is a warm reminder of that.

Name : Susan Wloszczyna / Alias : RogerEbert.com
A porterhouse of a movie that touches your heart.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Even as recently as American Sniper, Eastwood has done a much better job than this of shading in the grays of what constitutes heroism, both during and after the fact. Sully is so square, it's a wonder it even gets airborne.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
There is something compelling about someone who simply shows up for the job, day after day, carving out the remarkable from the unremarkable.

Name : Simon Houpt / Alias : Globe and Mail
Thrilling when we're on and around the plane (seeing that giant CGI bird splash down, especially on an Imax screen, makes you realize how improbable the whole enterprise was) and too often thudding when we're not.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
"One of the best movies of 2016."

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
As Clint Eastwood's Sully proves, the Miracle on the Hudson is actually lousy material for a movie.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Sully can feel like a dutiful, hagiographic slog, even though its actual running time barely tops 90 minutes and both Hanks and Eckhart give warm, understated, funny performances in the only two roles developed enough to qualify as real characters

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
Hanks is very good at playing an Everyman, and Eastwood is content to showcase Sullenberger in that way.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Although not an Oscar-worthy endeavor, Sully proves to be by turns engaging, exhilarating, and nail-biting.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
[A] plainspoken and disarmingly delicate conception of heroics, which might be Eastwood's best work since Million Dollar Baby.

Name : John Anderson / Alias : TIME Magazine
Inevitable is how "Sully" feels. That, and a little soggy.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
If Tom Hanks hadn't existed to play the title role, Eastwood would have had to invent him: This is one of those cases where movie-star persona and real-life legend blend perfectly.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
Sully is fascinating as a study of Eastwood's persecution complex, his fear that not everyone in the world adequately worships an accomplished white man.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
At its heart, this is a thrilling tribute to a modest hero who rose to an extraordinary occasion.

Name : Scott Marks / Alias : San Diego Reader
Hanks's Sullenberger is by far Eastwood's most untarnished standard-bearer to date. Not even Nelson Mandela came off looking this good.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
That it unnerves you as much as it does may seem surprising, given that going in, we know how this story ends. But Mr. Eastwood is also very good at his job, a talent that gives the movie its tension along with an autobiographical sheen.

Name : Danny King / Alias : Village Voice
The movie is more than worth seeing .

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Efficient and effective in Eastwood's experienced hands, "Sully" has interwoven a crisp and electric retelling of the story of the landing we know with a story we do not .

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
A fierce, stark, haunted drama of horror narrowly avoided.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Sully" is a classy, enormously satisfying ode to simple competence. To paraphrase the title character, it's just a movie doing its job. And amen to that.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
"Sully" isn't interested in going anywhere new. Watching the movie, you can feel Eastwood hurrying up to finish to move on to his next thing.

Name : Eric Kohn / Alias : indieWIRE
Eastwood delivers an earnest, straightforward look at the way the captain's professionalism saved the day. But while that aspect of the movie hits more than a few obvious notes, the crash is the real star of the show.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Sully remains an impressive achievement, a portrait of a good man whose heroism lay in having the right stuff and knowing how to use it during a small eternity of looming chaos and unprecedented peril.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Taut and vivid.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Sully" is the kind of film that may be described as old-fashioned and never goes out of style.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Whether you want to accept it or not, Eastwood remains one of the best and most quixotic filmmakers we have, torn between jingoism and doubt, exceptionalism and despair.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
You've heard of straw men? This is a straw movie.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
This is Hanks' show, and he delivers a typically strong performance, quickly allowing us to forget that we're watching an actor.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
By turning an emergency that lasted a little more than two minutes into an accomplished, unsettling adventure thriller, Eastwood is at the controls of a movie machine that other directors could send skidding off the runway.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
Hanks pulls off the earnest optimism and unassuming humility that made Sullenberger a media darling right after the incident.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Clint Eastwood is simply the ideal director for a big-screen telling of the "Miracle on the Hudson" hero pilot story that Sully delivers with confidence and grace.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
In the end, "Sully" is a broadly crowd-pleasing movie, at a time when we could use the straight-forward entertainment.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
At once a true-life drama about heroism and people working in harmony under exceptional conditions .

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
It may not be a classic, but it is enormously crowd-pleasing for the story and its reminder that ordinary people can do extraordinary things in a crisis.