lincoln the movie reviews

Advertisement

Supported by

Movie Review

A President Engaged in a Great Civil War

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

• Nov. 8, 2012

It is something of a paradox that American movies — a great democratic art form, if ever there was one — have not done a very good job of representing American democracy. Make-believe movie presidents are usually square-jawed action heroes, stoical Solons or ineffectual eggheads, blander and more generically appealing than their complicated real-life counterparts, who tend to be treated deferentially or ignored entirely unless they are named Richard Nixon .

The legislative process — the linchpin of our system of checks and balances — is often treated with lofty contempt masquerading as populist indignation, an attitude typified by the aw-shucks antipolitics of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Hollywood dreams of consensus, of happy endings and box office unity, but democratic government can present an interminable tale of gridlock, compromise and division. The squalor and vigor, the glory and corruption of the Republic in action have all too rarely made it onto the big screen.

There are exceptions, of course, and one of them is Steven Spielberg’s splendid “Lincoln,” which is, strictly speaking, about a president trying to scare up votes to get a bill passed in Congress. It is of course about a lot more than that, but let’s stick to the basics for now. To say that this is among the finest films ever made about American politics may be to congratulate it for clearing a fairly low bar. Some of the movie’s virtues are, at first glance, modest ones, like those of its hero, who is pleased to present himself as a simple backwoods lawyer, even as his folksy mannerisms mask a formidable and cunning political mind.

After a brutal, kinetic beginning — a scene of muddy, hand-to-hand combat that evokes the opening of “Saving Private Ryan”— “Lincoln” settles down into what looks like the familiar pageantry and speechifying of costume drama. A flock of first-rate character actors parades by in the heavy woolen plumage of the past. The smaller, plainer America of the mid-19th century is evoked by the brownish chiaroscuro of Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography, by the mud, brick and wood of Rick Carter’s production design and by enough important facial hair to make the young beard farmers of 21st-century Brooklyn weep tears of envy.

The most famous and challenging beard of them all sits on the chin of Daniel Day-Lewis, who eases into a role of epic difficulty as if it were a coat he had been wearing for years. It is both a curiosity and a marvel of modern cinema that this son of an Anglo-Irish poet should have become our leading portrayer of archaic Americans. Hawkeye (in “Last of the Mohicans”), Bill the Butcher (“Gangs of New York”), Daniel Plainview (“There Will Be Blood”) — all are figures who live in the dim borderlands of memory and myth, but with his angular frame and craggy features, Mr. Day-Lewis turns them into flesh and blood.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘lincoln’: film review.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as the 16th president in the historical drama directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

Far from being a traditional biographical drama, Lincoln dedicates itself to doing something very few Hollywood films have ever attempted, much less succeeded at: showing, from historical example, how our political system works in an intimate procedural and personal manner. That the case in point is the hair-breadth passage by the House of Representatives of the epochal 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and that the principal orchestrator is President Abraham Lincoln in the last days of his life endow Steven Spielberg ‘s film with a great theme and subject, which are honored with intelligence, humor and relative restraint. Tony Kushner ‘s densely packed script has been directed by Spielberg in an efficient, unpretentious way that suggests Michael Curtiz at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, right down to the rogue’s gallery of great character actors in a multitude of bewhiskered supporting roles backing up a first-rate leading performance by Daniel Day-Lewis . The wall-to-wall talk and lack of much Civil War action might give off the aroma of schoolroom medicine to some, but the elemental drama being played out, bolstered by the prestige of the participants and a big push by Disney, should make this rare film about American history pay off commercially.

Related Stories

'jurassic world' sequel reveals title and first look at stars scarlett johansson, mahershala ali, sally field says she returned to social media because of kamala harris' presidential bid: "hope is here".

First unveiled at an unannounced sneak preview at the New York Film Festival on Oct. 8, Lincoln  will receive its official world premiere on Nov. 8 at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles in advance of its Nov. 9 limited opening and wider release Nov. 16.

The Bottom Line An absorbing, densely packed, sometimes funny telling of the 16th president's masterful effort in manipulating the passage of the 13th Amendment.

Concentrating on the tumultuous period between January 1865 and the conclusion of the Civil War on April 9 and Lincoln’s assassination five days later, on Good Friday, this is history that plays out mostly in wood-paneled rooms darkened by thick drapes and heavy furniture and, increasingly, in the intimate House chamber where the strength of the anti-abolitionist Democrats will be tested against Lincoln’s moderates and the more zealous anti-slavery radicals of the young Republican Party.

Occasionally, there are glimpses of life outside the inner sanctums of government, first on the battlefield, where black Union troops join in the vicious hand-to-hand combat where the mud renders the gray and blue uniforms all but indistinguishable, then in the dusty streets of the nation’s capital and in the verdant surrounding countryside.

The stiffest challenge facing Kushner was to lay out enough exposition in the early going to give viewers their bearings while simultaneously jump-starting the film’s dramatic movement. Quite a bit of information simply has to be dropped in quickly to get it over with — Mary Todd Lincoln’s continuing depression over the death of a son three years earlier, her husband’s re-election the previous November, the need for Lincoln to win over some 20 Democrats to achieve the two-thirds majority required to pass — but the estimable playwright who won a Pulitzer for 1992’s Angels in America  mostly manages to cover so many mandatory issues by plausibly making them the subjects of the characters’ vivid conversation.

Particularly helpful in this regard are the intimate talks between Lincoln (Day-Lewis) and his most valued adviser, Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn), as well with his party’s founder Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook, a famous Lincoln in his own time). Having signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and gotten easy Senate passage of the 13th Amendment the previous April, Lincoln is determined to push the House to act quickly and put his signature on the new law by Feb. 1, before the war is likely to end.

What follows is a course in political persuasion in all its forms: cajoling, intimidation, promises, horse-trading, strong-arming and intellectual persuasion, down-home style. In conversation and physical movement, Lincoln is a deliberate fellow who takes his time, a country lawyer whose rumpled exterior conceals abiding principles and an iron will, a man of no personal vanity or fancy education who is nevertheless unafraid to cite Euclid, notably in his equation of equality = fairness = justice, with which Lincoln frames the slavery issue.

Fundamentally unhappy in his family life with his almost continually complaining wife Mary (a very good Sally Field ), who despairs of being condemned to “four more years in this terrible house,” and oldest son Robert ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ), a college lad desperate to enlist in the Army over his parents’ objections, Lincoln seems to find the greatest pleasure in spinning amusing life-lesson yarns dating to his lawyering days. The film accrues much-needed levity from these interludes, less from the stories themselves than from the reactions of his captive audiences; by the third or fourth time Lincoln embarks on one of his tales, the polite attention paid by his listeners has descended to “here-he-goes-again” eye-rolling and ill-concealed smirking.

As he demonstrated in Angels in America, Kushner — who co-wrote Munich for Spielberg — is adept at juggling a huge number of characters without confusion. One of the main subplots details the efforts of three Republican roustabouts (James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson) to use any means necessary to change some minds on the Democratic side while at Lincoln’s behest delaying a high-level Confederate delegation making its way to Washington to talk peace. There also are occasional glimpses of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (Jared Harris) trying to discern whether the South is ready to call it quits.

But increasingly, attention focuses on Pennsylvania Rep. Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones ), a lifelong activist for absolute equality among the races philosophically opposed to going along with a watered-down law. The loss of his and other radical Republicans’ support would spell disaster for Lincoln who, in all events, faces a massive challenge that calls on all the political, personal and persuasive skills he has honed over a lifetime.

At the film’s center, then, lies one of the remarkable characters in world history at the critical moment of his life. As Walt Whitman said of Lincoln (as he did of himself), “he contained multitudes,” and Day-Lewis’ sly, slow-burn performance wonderfully fulfills this description. Gangly, grizzled and, as his wife was known to say, “not pretty,” this Lincoln plainly shows his humble origins and is more disheveled than his Washington colleagues. With an astonishing physical resemblance to the real man, Day-Lewis excels when shifting into what was perhaps Lincoln’s most comfortable mode, that of frisky storyteller, especially in the way he seems to anticipate and relish his listeners’ reactions.

But he also is a hard-nosed negotiator with that critical attribute of great politicians in a democracy: an unyielding inner core of principle cloaked by a strategic willingness to compromise in the interests of getting his way. A long scene in which he hashes things out with his cabinet (the single most explicit evocation of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals, the one credited partial source of the screenplay) vividly exhibits his skills in action. The rare moments when Lincoln loses his temper are startling but also hint that his outbursts might be preplanned for effect.

Lincoln seems most ill-at-ease in domestic exchanges with his family, especially with his harping wife, to whose repetitive complaints her husband cannot possibly invent any new answers, even if her sorrow is rooted in genuine depression.

The dramatic and raucous vote on the 13th Amendment is both exhilarating and unexpectedly humorous, with much shouting, threatening and fist-waving, fence-straddling Democrats being shamed by their colleagues and a gallery audience (including some blacks) hanging on every yeah and nay, climaxed, of course, by the exaltation of victory. Appomattox, with proud Gen. Robert E. Lee high on his white horse, is briefly shown, and Kushner and Spielberg have invented a novel way of portraying the fateful events at Ford’s Theatre that doesn’t even show John Wilkes Booth.

For whatever reason, the filmmakers have skipped the ripe opportunity to portray one of the most extraordinary and haunting episodes of this entire period, that of Lincoln’s nearly solitary early-morning walk through the streets of Richmond. The partly burning city had just been abandoned by the Confederate government, and Lincoln increasingly became surrounded by awestruck, suddenly free blacks who could scarcely believe who had just entered their midst, some reacting as if he were Jesus incarnate. Finally arriving at the capitol building, he entered the office of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, sat in his chair and quietly drank a glass of water.

In the event, Spielberg directs in a to-the-point, self-effacing style, with only minor instances of artificially inflated emotionalism and a humor that mostly undercuts eruptions of self-importance. It’s a conscientious piece of work very much in the service of the material, in the manner of the good old Hollywood pros, without frills or grandiosity. At the same time, however, it lacks that final larger dimension and poetic sense such as can be found in John Ford’s great 1939 Young Mr. Lincoln, to which Spielberg’s film is a biographical and thematic bookend.

Further helping matters is the mostly subdued score by John Williams, whose over-the-top contribution to War Horse last year proved so counterproductive to that film’s effect. Working predominantly in shades of blue and black, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski takes a similarly straightforward approach, while the period evocation achieved by many hands led by production designer Rick Carter, costume designer Joanna Johnston and the makeup and hair team is detailed and lacking in embalmed fastidiousness.

Other than Day-Lewis, acting honors go to Jones, who clearly relishes the rich role of Stevens and whose crusty smarts prove both formidable and funny. Very much a good guy here, Stevens in earlier cinematic days was always portrayed as an extremist villain, both in The Birth of a Nation and in the odd 1943 Andrew Johnson biographical drama Tennessee Johnson.

Venue: AFI Film Festival (closing night) Release: Friday, Nov. 9 (Disney/Touchstone) Production: DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, Reliance Entertainment , Amblin Entertainment , Kennedy/Marshall Productions Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Joseph Cross, Jared Harris, Lee Pace Director: Steven Spielberg Screenwriter: Tony Kushner, based in part on the the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln , by Doris Kearns Goodwin Producers: Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy Executive producers: Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll, Jonathan King Director of photography: Janusz Kaminski Production designer: Rick Carter Costume designer: Joanna Johnston Editor: Michael Kahn Music: John Williams Rated PG-13, 149 minutes

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Telluride: for a towering turn in ‘maria,’ angelina jolie is in the hunt for a second oscar, oliver stone says robert downey jr. nearly ruined ‘natural born killers’ with “slapstick bullsh**”, venice trips out on harmony korine’s ‘baby invasion’, ‘the piano lesson’ review: danielle deadwyler buoys malcolm washington’s dutiful august wilson adaptation, harmony korine’s ‘baby invasion’ delivers wild message from mercenary group duck mobb: “nobody is safe”, ‘baby invasion’ review: harmony korine’s immersive first-person shooter film is both mind-bending and mind-numbing.

Daniel Day-Lewis delivers an unimpeachable performance in Steven Spielberg's shrewd, stately and somewhat stuffy drama focused on a narrow yet defining chapter of Abraham Lincoln's life: abolishing slavery via the passage of a Constitutional amendment.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

• ‘The End’ Review: Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon Took Shelter, but 20 Years Underground Starts to Get Tedious 2 hours ago
• ‘Baby Invasion’ Review: Harmony Korine’s Latest Brain-Barf Synthesizes a Career’s Worth of Big Ideas 4 hours ago
• ‘Conclave’ Review: Ralph Fiennes, Looking Tortured, Leads a Tense Search for a New Pope 20 hours ago

Abraham Lincoln may not technically be the subject of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” but Daniel Day-Lewis is inarguably its star, delivering an unimpeachable performance as the United States’ 16th president in a shrewd, stately and somewhat stuffy drama focused on a narrow yet defining chapter of Lincoln’s life: abolishing slavery via the passage of a Constitutional amendment. Though historians will surely find room to quibble, every choice Day-Lewis makes lends dignity and gravitas to America’s most revered figure, resulting in an event movie whose commercial and critical fate rides on the reputations of not just Lincoln, but the esteemed creative team as well.

Related Stories

‘Star Wars Outlaws’: Disney Tests Gamers’ Appetite for Hollywood IP

Venice' Critics Week Title 'Peacock' Starring 'All Quiet on the Western Front' Actor Sells to Major Territories for MK2 Films (EXCLUSIVE)

Too seldom does American cinema deal with the country’s most shameful policy: the paradox by which a nation founded on equality might allow the subjugation and servitude of one race to persist for nearly a century. Spielberg, however, has faced the issue head-on, not just once (“ The Color Purple “) or twice (“Amistad”), but three times, confronting it most directly — at the very core of the policy — in “Lincoln.” The title functions as something of a misnomer, considering that the president here serves as the instrument to emancipation and not the actual focus of the film, as if “Amistad” had been released as “Quincy Adams.”

Popular on Variety

Liberally adapted from Doris Kearns Goodwin ‘s 2005 book “Team of Rivals,” Tony Kushner ‘s script dramatizes the behind-the-scenes story of the wheeling and dealing required to pass the 13th Amendment — undoubtedly the legacy for which Lincoln hoped to be remembered, not realizing how compelling audiences would find every aspect of his private life 144 years later.

The theater-trained scribe, who previously co-wrote “Munich” for the director, defies what admirers expect of a Spielberg-made Lincoln biopic. In place of vicarious emotion and tour de force filmmaking, “Lincoln” offers a largely static intellectual reappraisal of the great orator, limiting not only the scenery chewing but also the scenery itself in what amounts to Spielberg’s most play-like production yet; it’s a style that will keep many viewers at arm’s length.

Emphasizing talk over action, Kushner concentrates on Lincoln’s strategy of forcing an unpopular and recently defeated policy through a lame-duck House of Representatives. Enlisting three buffoonish vote-buyers (James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson ), the executive doesn’t hesitate to exploit his immense powers, which extend to offering cushy government jobs, pardons and other presidential privileges to those willing to embrace his position.

This is politics as it is really played, yet few writers have found a way to make it as compelling as Kushner does here. That success owes in part to the extensive character-actor ensemble Spielberg and casting director Avy Kaufman have enlisted, repaying them with dramatic roles for not only Lincoln’s entire cabinet (most prominently David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward), but more than a dozen key allies and opponents of the 13th Amendment, including Lee Pace as a showboating Democrat, Michael Stuhlbarg as a conscience-conflicted swing voter and David Costabile as the doubting Thomas among Lincoln’s closest supporters.

Despite occasional digressions into spectacular but artificial-looking Civil War battlefields, the action is rowdiest on the floor of Congress, where Republican representative Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones ) trades scathing barbs with such ideological rivals as George Pendleton (Peter McRobbie, who more closely resembles frown-creased portraits of the real-life Stevens than Jones does). Though the film inevitably deals with Lincoln’s assassination, notably played offscreen, the climax comes during the Congressional vote itself, in which Spielberg allows the names of history’s heroes to ring out the way he previously did those saved on Schindler’s list. Even more effective is the way Kushner integrates the full text of the Gettysburg Address and the 13th Amendment into the body of the film.

Still, since audiences inevitably prefer personal intrigue to the inner workings of politics, Kushner laces “Lincoln” with details about first lady “Molly” ( Sally Field ), as Abe called his wife, Mary, and sons Tad (Gulliver McGrath) and Robert (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who withdraws from Harvard in order to enlist in the Union army, despite his father’s adamant demands to the contrary. Still, these human-interest scenes seem to get in the way of the story at hand, offering valuable, intimate glimpses of the Lincolns as seldom seen before, yet inorganic to the abolition of slavery — save one powerful scene, when Mary, having already lost one son and loathe to watch Robert perish in the Civil War, publicly threatens her husband, “If you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, you will have to answer to me.” Spielberg and Kushner hold this truth to be self-evident: that behind every powerful man is a woman pushing him toward greatness.

Informed largely by Goodwin’s research, “Lincoln” presents an image of the president very different from the melancholy figure so often seen before. Such crushing grief falls instead to Field, whose long-suffering Mary endured debilitating migraines and deep depression after the death of their son Willie, but also scandalously overspent in her efforts to outfit the White House — and herself — to a level she felt befitting the first family. Curiously, Mary was a decade Abraham’s junior, though Field is actually a decade older than Day-Lewis, creating an odd, almost maternal dynamic between the two actors.

Meanwhile, Day-Lewis plays Lincoln as a physically awkward but not unhandsome figure, gentle with his children, uncomfortable with ceremony (his disdain of calfskin gloves becomes a running joke), and firm when needed with colleagues who could not always see the wisdom in the man some considered “the capitulating compromiser.” This Lincoln is a lover of theater and avid raconteur who easily quotes from Shakespeare and scripture, a man who problem-solves via storytelling — an impression that naturally flatters those in Spielberg and Kushner’s profession.

Perhaps that explains the staginess of “Lincoln’s” telling, right down to the creak of the boards under the great orator’s feet and d.p. Janusz Kaminski ‘s conservative framing, which recalls either classic prosceniums or heavily shadowed Renaissance paintings. Though incongruous with the psychological realism that Kushner, through elevated dialogue, aims to achieve, this iconic style suits such a beloved persona.

And yet, Lincoln’s life takes a backseat to the ideological battle between two opposing ideas — an end to slavery, or an end to war. The result looks as much like a Natural History Museum diorama as it sounds: a respectful but waxy re-creation that feels somehow awe-inspiring yet chillingly lifeless to behold, the great exception being Jones’ alternately blistering and sage turn as Stevens.

Production values are as elegant as one would expect from Spielberg, grittier but no less impressionistic than last year’s “War Horse.” John Williams’ score, which seemingly incorporates hymns, marches and other period music, offers vital but unobtrusive support.

• Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a DreamWorks Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Reliance Entertainment presentation in association with Participant Media and Dune Entertainment of an Amblin Entertainment/Kennedy/Marshall Co. production. Produced by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy. Executive producers, Jonathan King, Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll. Co-producers, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Adam Somner. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Screenplay, Tony Kushner, based in part on the book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
• Crew: Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Janusz Kaminski; editor, Michael Kahn; music, John Williams; production designer, Rick Carter; art directors, Curt Beech, David Crank, Leslie McDonald; set decorator, Jim Erickson; costume designer, Joanna Johnston; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/Datasat), Ron Judkins; sound designer, Ben Burtt; supervising sound editor, Richard Hymns; re-recording mixers, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom; special effects coordinator, Steve Cremin; visual effects supervisors, Ben Morris, Garan Miljkovich; visual effects, Framestore, the Garage VFX; stunt coordinator, Garrett Warren; assistant director, Adam Somner; casting, Avy Kaufman. Reviewed at Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, Calif., Oct. 25, 2012. (In AFI Fest -- closer.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 149 MIN.
• With: Abraham Lincoln - Daniel Day-Lewis Mary Todd Lincoln - Sally Field Secretary of State William Seward - David Strathairn Robert Todd Lincoln - Joseph Gordon-Levitt WN Bilbo - James Spader Francis Preston Blair - Hal Holbrook Thaddeus Stevens - Tommy Lee Jones Fernando Wood - Lee Pace George Zeaman - Michael Stuhlbarg James Ashley - David Costabile Alexander Stephens - Jackie Earle Haley Lydia Smith - S. Epatha Merkerson Ulysses S. Grant - Jared Harris With: John Hawkes, Walton Goggins, Bruce McGill, David Oyelowo, Julie White, Adam Driver, Gulliver McGrath, Tim Blake Nelson, Gregory Itzin, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, Christopher Boyer, John Hutton.

More from Variety

JD Vance Quietly Scored an $8 Million Deal for ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Follow-Up as Hollywood Straddles Both Sides of Political Divide (EXCLUSIVE)

Bungie Layoffs Highlight Post-M&A Issues for Gaming Industry as Its Unions React

Julia Louis-Dreyfus Says Kamala Harris Is Not a ‘Narcissistic, Megalomaniac Sociopath’ Like Her ‘Veep’ Character: That ‘Might Be Another Candidate’

Take-Two Earnings Emblematic of Endless Risk-Taking in Gaming Biz

More from our brands, missy elliott, ciara, questlove, more remember fatman scoop.

How Véronique Nichanian Built Hermès Menswear One Stitch at a Time

NCAA Nixes QR Codes in Move Criticized as Outdated

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

Saturday Night Live: Where to Buy Beloved Characters in Funko Pop! Form Before Season 50 Debuts

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

How to Help Kids Build Character Strengths with Quality Media

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 21 Reviews
• Kids Say 51 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Outstanding drama about revered leader's political genius.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Steven Spielberg's Lincoln isn't a biographical chronicle of Abraham Lincoln's (Daniel Day-Lewis) life in office but rather a political drama about the passing of the 13th Amendment and the end of the Civil War. The most sensitive issues in the movie are its depiction of…

Why Age 13+?

As would have been accurate for the era, the words "Negroes," "co

Scenes of the Civil War are mostly shown in passing, but there's definitely

Characters drink liquor (some to excess) and smoke cigars, pipes, and hand-rolle

Mary and Abraham Lincoln embrace.

Any Positive Content?

Lincoln is a tribute to a president who took leadership seriously and knew that,

Lincoln is shown to be a thoughtful, intelligent, generous man who, while not as

As would have been accurate for the era, the words "Negroes," "coons," "coloreds," and "n-----s" are used to describe African Americans. Other strong language is peppered throughout and includes two uses of "f--k," plus "s--t," "bulls--t," "ass," "goddamn," "crap," "damn," "hell," "son of a bitch," and "oh my God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Scenes of the Civil War are mostly shown in passing, but there's definitely carnage -- including bodies lying dead across battlefields. Mentions of casualties upset the president and his Cabinet. In an Army hospital, amputee soldiers greet the president, and then two soldiers bury a barrel full of severed limbs -- making Robert Todd Lincoln (and likely many viewers) sick. Although we don't see Lincoln's assassination, he's displayed dead, with a pool of blood surrounding him.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink liquor (some to excess) and smoke cigars, pipes, and hand-rolled cigarettes (accurate for the era).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Lincoln is a tribute to a president who took leadership seriously and knew that, for the United States to continue, slavery would need to be abolished -- even if he wasn't personally a die-hard supporter of equal rights. There are also messages about work-life balance, letting children make their own choices, and realizing that all people have worth and a right to their freedom. Additional themes include integrity, courage, humility, and perseverance.

Positive Role Models

Lincoln is shown to be a thoughtful, intelligent, generous man who, while not as pro-equality as the abolitionists, is definitely insistent that the country abolish slavery. But he's not depicted as perfect: He's willing to play the political game of patronage (giving lame-duck Democrats political appointments) in exchange for getting the 13th Amendment passed. Thaddeus Stevens is the most progressive congressman, and he wants nothing short of total equality. The movie doesn't sit in judgment of or demonize the Confederates or Democrats who don't want to abolish slavery; they're depicted as closed-minded men who just can't fathom changing their way of life.

Parents need to know that Steven Spielberg 's Lincoln isn't a biographical chronicle of Abraham Lincoln's ( Daniel Day-Lewis ) life in office but rather a political drama about the passing of the 13th Amendment and the end of the Civil War. The most sensitive issues in the movie are its depiction of war (severed limbs and bloody battlefields filled with dead soldiers are seen) and occasional strong language, including many era-accurate (but hard to hear today) racial epithets. But overall, the violence is much tamer than in war movies like Saving Private Ryan or Glory , and Lincoln is an educational, entertaining drama that even some mature 5th graders might be ready to handle, if they watch with their parents. (That said, it does move somewhat slowly, so kids hooked on fast-paced entertainment may not be interested.) To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (21)
• Kids say (51)

Based on 21 parent reviews

Good to watch as a family--values and civics lessons

If it weren't for the blasphemy the movie would be a 5 star., what's the story.

It's 1865. President Abraham LINCOLN ( Daniel Day-Lewis ) has just been reelected, and it's clear that the Confederacy isn't likely to survive another spring in the ongoing Civil War. But before Lincoln can embrace the likelihood of the South's surrender, he wants -- seemingly more than anything -- to pass the 13th Amendment and definitively outlaw slavery in the entire Union. With the help of Secretary of State William Seward ( David Strathairn ), Lincoln hires three political negotiators ( James Spader , Tim Blake Nelson , and John Hawkes ) to convince at least 20 of the House of Representatives' Democrats (who staunchly oppose the amendment) to vote for the bill (usually in exchange for patronage positions). Meanwhile, in his personal life, Lincoln faces more issues of compromise and sacrifice with his emotional wife, Mary ( Sally Field ), and his desperate-to-enlist son, Robert ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ).

Is It Any Good?

There's no better film to watch to pay witness to how even our country's greatest historical leaders still had to make quid pro quo overtures across party lines to move forward. Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's award-winning book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln , Lincoln is more about the political intrigue of Lincoln's final months than a "biopic" about his personal life. Day-Lewis' performance is a brilliant character study of a legendary man. Unlike the over-the-top characters Day-Lewis played in Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood , his President Lincoln is an introspective man who tells stories that sound like parables and who exudes a powerful dignity, even in silence. As Mary Todd Lincoln, Field makes a passionate case for the First Lady's instability, stemming from the overwhelming grief of losing son Willie.

But one of the most startling performances in the film, which is so eloquently scripted by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, is courtesy of Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens. The uncompromising abolitionist congressman wants complete racial equality -- not just the legal extinction of slavery -- but even he knows that change sometimes comes in baby steps, not revolution.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about why President Lincoln is still considered one of the most influential presidents of all time. How does the movie's depiction of President Lincoln compare to what you know or have learned about him? Did anything surprise you about his political or personal life?

What does the movie tell us about how politics have changed since the 1860s? Do politicians still have to work together and make compromises, even if they fundamentally disagree? What is the continued relevance of the 13th Amendment?

How closely do you think Lincoln adheres to history? How many liberties with the facts do you think a movie like this can take? Why might filmmakers decide to do that?

How do the figures depicted in Lincoln demonstrate perseverance and courage ? What about humility and integrity ? Why are these important character strengths ?

How does Mary Todd Lincoln's emotional fragility -- in no small part spurred by the fear of one of her remaining sons going to fight in the war that her husband considers necessary -- impact Lincoln's situation?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 9, 2012
• On DVD or streaming : March 26, 2013
• Cast : Daniel Day-Lewis , Joseph Gordon-Levitt , Sally Field
• Director : Steven Spielberg
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : DreamWorks
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : History
• Character Strengths : Courage , Humility , Integrity , Perseverance
• Run time : 150 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language
• Awards : Academy Award , Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Winner
• Last updated : June 20, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

Amazing Grace

The Conspirator

Dances with Wolves

Political movies, related topics.

• Perseverance

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

• Newsletters
• Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

The legislative process has never been this dramatic—or this fun.

Photo by David James – © 2012 - DreamWorks II Distribution Co. All Rights Reserved.

Lincoln feels like a movie Steven Spielberg has always been fated to make. Of course these two figures were bound to collide at some point: the most mythic of American presidents and the most myth-making of American  filmmakers. The values Abraham Lincoln has come to represent in the collective imagination—freedom, equality, justice, mercy—are the same values Spielberg has spent a career celebrating and not infrequently sentimentalizing.

Lincoln does sometimes get a little sappy around the edges. Though his project here is clearly one of conscious self-restraint, Spielberg can’t resist the occasional opportunity for patriotic tear-jerking, usually signaled by a swell of John Williams’ symphonic score. But in between, there are long stretches that are as quiet, contemplative, and austere as anything Spielberg has ever done.

In large part, this quality of austerity derives from the fact that Abraham Lincoln is played by Daniel Day-Lewis, an actor who is to other actors as Nijinsky was to other dancers of his time: He seems to be engaging in a different art form entirely. Day-Lewis’ embodiment of Lincoln is less a portrait than a sculpture. You can walk around it and see different things from different angles. The character is so fully imagined, so lived from the inside out, that we leave feeling we’ve met and briefly known, if not Lincoln himself, certainly someone real and extraordinary. This isn’t a Hollywood-style historical epic, like War Horse or Amistad —it’s history on an intimate domestic scale, Lincoln wandering the halls of the White House wrapped in an old wool blanket.

Lincoln does begin on a grand scale, with a horrific, mercifully short depiction of the realities of Civil War-era battle (a swarm of confused, frightened men hacking at one another with bayonets and drowning each other in puddles). Immediately after, we witness the 16th president at the front, greeting two pairs of war-weary Union soldiers, one black, one white. The on-the-nose parallelism of this scene—and the unlikelihood that two separate soldiers would h ave independently memorized the Gettysburg address, and have the presence of mind to quote it in full back to its author after a brutal battle—gets the film off to an unpromising start. Is this going to be a stiffly inspirational civics diorama?

Blessedly, we soon move into the main storyline, which focuses very tightly on the last few months of Lincoln’s life, as he struggled both to end the Civil War and to pass the 13 th Amendment abolishing slavery. The script by Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner draws heavily (though not exclusively) on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s best-selling book Team of Rivals , which is about Lincoln’s clashes with his Cabinet over how to accomplish these two seemingly complementary, but in reality conflicting, goals. Would it be better for the Union to negotiate an end to the war first, or to use the promise of peace as leverage to get the amendment passed? Is Lincoln’s primary moral duty as a leader to end the soldiers’ suffering with all possible speed, or to ensure that the abolition of slavery is permanently written into the Constitution? The moral, legal, and political questions raised by Lincoln’s Scylla/Charybdis dilemma are the meat of the story here—and if that means most of Lincoln’s moments of high suspense occur in offices and legislative chambers, well, Kushner is writer enough, and Spielberg director enough, to turn vote-wrangling and strategic political chicanery into both wry comedy and high drama.

Advised by Secretary of State William Seward (a superb David Strathairn), who despairs of his boss’s habit of first seeking, then ignoring, his advice, Lincoln tries everything to get a two-thirds majority vote, from personally strong-arming reluctant legislators to hiring a team of Falstaffian secret operatives (James Spader, John Hawkes, and Tim Blake Nelson) to offer patronage jobs in exchange for votes. The vision of Lincoln as a world-class horse-trader, capable of deploying slippery lawyer’s tricks in the service of lofty goals, animates many of the movie’s sharpest and funniest scenes. And though Day-Lewis’ Lincoln is a surpassingly gentle, soft-spoken man, given to long homespun anecdotes and bone-dry witticisms, there are scenes in which Lincoln more than justifies his reputation among many of his contemporaries as a steel-willed autocrat seeking to usurp the powers of the legislative branch.

In its second half, the film focuses increasingly on Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), a Pennsylvania congressman who’s spent his life battling for full racial equality. Stevens’ opposition to the amendment on the grounds that it doesn’t go far enough endangers its passage, and he and his fellow lawmakers square off repeatedly over the meaning and necessity of political compromise. Decked out in a curled black wig and limping on a cane, hurling poetic invective at his opponents (“Slavery is the only insult to natural law, you fatuous nincompoop!”), Jones gives a magnificent performance that should have his best supporting actor nomination in the bag. The climactic voting scene in the House chamber is a rowdy mélange of low comedy, high drama, and suspense—though we know, of course, that the amendment will pass in the end, Spielberg and Kushner have so ably orchestrated the stories of multiple sought-after votes that each “Aye” or “Nay” plays out like a miniature cliffhanger.

The movie’s depiction of its president’s enigmatic domestic life is only intermittently successful. There are some blisteringly honest scenes between Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field), his depressed, resentful, but politically savvy wife. The portrait of the Lincolns’ marriage is remarkably complex, especially in the scenes where she rebukes him for insufficiently mourning their dead son. We see how her bottomless neediness and his core of emotional reserve made for a toxic combination, but we also sense their deep love for each other. I never quite believed in the storyline about Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the Lincoln’s oldest son Robert, who insists on enlisting in the Army against his parents’ wishes—their Oedipal squabbles seemed familiar from too many other, lesser movies. But the tender, lively relationship between Lincoln and his adored youngest son, Tad (Gulliver McGrath), runs through the movie like an animating spark, with the boy racing through Cabinet meetings to leap on his ever-tolerant father’s lap. An early, quiet scene in which Lincoln finds his child sleeping by the fireside, lies full-length next to him and kisses him was the movie’s “had me at hello” moment for me—from that point, I could tabulate its flaws as it went along while still loving every minute of it.

Well, all but the last few minutes, in which we see not quite Lincoln’s assassination but a related event taking place at the same time. I admire Spielberg’s choice to conclude on a note of indirection and discretion: Ending on a tableaux vivant of the well-known facts of that night at Ford’s Theatre might have been both dramatically inert and crass. But I think the film should have ended even earlier, on a long shot (beautifully framed by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski) of the lanky, stooped president walking alone down a hall of the White House, on the way to take his wife to the theater on April 14, 1865, five days after ending the bloodiest war in the nation’s history. We all know what happened next—and given how much we love this man we feel we’ve come to know, it’s sad enough just thinking about it.

• Become a Critical Movie Critic
• Movie Review Archives

Movie Review: Lincoln (2012)

• Charlie Juhl
• Movie Reviews
• 13 responses
• --> November 15, 2012

Leading the North.

In 2012, Abraham Lincoln is on currency, in hundreds of dusty books, and sitting in a chair in his own memorial at one end of the National Mall. His image is stale; he is not a man, but an unknowable symbol. Steven Spielberg, however, fashions the legend into a flesh and blood human being in his biopic Lincoln . This Abraham (Daniel Day-Lewis) tells jokes, argues with his wife, and walks with a hunch in his shoulders as if an imaginary weight bears down on them. Lincoln is no longer just 25% of Mt. Rushmore, he is the most fascinating, sympathetic, and memorable character you will see on a movie screen this year.

Hard choices must be made to tell Abraham Lincoln’s story. Do you start with his birth and childhood? Do you cover his early legal and congressional career? Which part of his presidency do you focus on and if you include the assassination, will that be most of the story or just the end? Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner, who bases his screenplay on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” decide to focus not just on Lincoln’s presidency, but on a very specific time just after his re-election in January 1865. The Civil War is entering its fourth year and hundreds of thousands are dead on bloodied battlefields, yet there is a sense in the air that the war’s conclusion is near. It is anyone’s guess how it will end, but that does not stop them from discussing what will come after during Reconstruction. Some argue for the Union to take revenge against the south instead of leniency, some argue for a negotiated peace instead of an official surrender, and some argue for slavery’s return instead of full abolition.

Lincoln knows full well that at the war’s end, the courts may declare his Emancipation Proclamation illegal. The only way to ensure slavery’s demise is to pass an amendment to the Constitution (today it is the 13th Amendment). To do that, the House of Representatives must vote in favor of it with a two-thirds majority. But in 1865, there is no shortage of Congressmen who remain pro-slavery and dead set against the equaling of the races which they see as naturally separated by God. Convincing men to change their long standing beliefs seems an impossible task, and it is this task Lincoln, his Cabinet, and his cronies must accomplish if they hope to succeed.

Anyone paying attention in high school knows about the 13th Amendment and ultimately knows what will happen in the end. Therefore, it is a true credit to Spielberg, Kushner, and the cast that the process of its life in Congress is fraught with tension, suspense, and real emotions. Secretary of State Seward (David Strathairn) marshals the men who will do the arm twisting. The arm twisters, including Mr. Bilbo (James Spader) and Mr. Latham (John Hawkes) are greasy insiders promising patronage jobs and many other enticements to the fence-sitters. The fence-sitters are being pulled and pushed by their Congressional leaders including Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook). Observing their debates from the balcony is Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) who feels some shame from her earlier bouts of grief and depression over her deceased son Willie, yet remains determined to keep her oldest son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), from enlisting.

Looking presidential.

Behind all of this vast political machinery, corruption, debating, and harsh words stands a weary man quick to tell a witty story to make his point and lead a torn country towards his vision of a united future. Lincoln is a masterpiece of filmmaking and is an unforgettable film to watch in a theater. It will be nominated for an array of Oscars with wins most likely for Day-Lewis and Spielberg. Daniel Day-Lewis may be the most gifted actor currently working when his chooses to take on a role, which only happens every other year or so (everybody still remembers Daniel Plainview from “ There Will Be Blood ” and Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting from “ Gangs of New York “). He raises his voice by what sounds like an entire octave to speak in what the historians say was Lincoln’s higher-pitched tone. He looks down at the table or the ground when in conversation but when required, he will command the room’s attention when he knows he must bind people together to do the right thing.

Crafting a biopic around a man as iconic as Abraham Lincoln requires a firm hand and concrete decision-making. If you include too much material from too many episodes in his life, the movie will feel stretched, light, and make much less of an impact on the audience because of its lack of depth in any particular area. By focusing Lincoln on a very specific and limited time frame, shaping the central conflict over one of the most transformative constitutional amendments, and employing actors who all give superior performances based on a stellar script, Spielberg has made what will most likely be the best film of the year and one which all should take the time and go see.

Tagged: civil war , novel adaptation , president , slavery

I like movies and they like me right back. You can find out how much by visiting my personal site Citizen Charlie .

Movie Review: The Gatekeepers (2012) Movie Review: Beautiful Creatures (2013) Movie Review: Warm Bodies (2013) Movie Review: Parker (2013) Movie Review: Mama (2013) Movie Review: 5 Broken Cameras (2011) Movie Review: Gangster Squad (2013)

'Movie Review: Lincoln (2012)' have 13 comments

November 15, 2012 @ 10:32 pm Sparling

The takeaway from Lincoln is politicians were just as dirty then as they are now.

Log in to Reply

November 15, 2012 @ 11:00 pm Porknog

The Oscar is Day-Lewis’. No contest – just give it to him now and be done with it.

November 16, 2012 @ 6:00 pm Baconator

Same could be said for Spielberg.

November 15, 2012 @ 11:26 pm Grasshopper

SPOILER ALERT: Lincoln gets shot and dies.

November 16, 2012 @ 5:07 am Lain

One can only hope the powdered wig makes a comeback. Not only does Tommy Lee Jones own the part of Thaddeus Stevens he makes it look good too.

November 16, 2012 @ 10:19 am Chloe

My only gripe is the ending. Spielberg should have ended the film with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. The addition of Lincoln’s assassination was unnecessary.

November 16, 2012 @ 12:22 pm Aspie182

Not much of a biopic. Damn good movie about the passage of the 13th ammendment but not a Lincoln biography.

November 16, 2012 @ 12:41 pm chacha

Lincoln is Spielberg at his directorial best. He made dramatic and engaging the political process which is, if you’ve ever watched CSPAN, a drag to watch.

November 17, 2012 @ 1:35 pm Luraly

Not his best. Character arcs for Mary (Sally Field) and Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) were incomplete. “Saving Private Ryan” is still his best work.

November 16, 2012 @ 2:43 pm Ramses

Movie made me respect Lincoln all the more.

November 16, 2012 @ 9:06 pm Huff

Hear, hear!

November 18, 2012 @ 6:41 pm Eve

Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest character actor alive today. The Oscar is his.

November 23, 2012 @ 7:13 am wrathofthetitans

nice biography movie,great watch.

Privacy Policy | About Us

 |  Log in

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

• DVD & Streaming
• Drama , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

• November 9, 2012
• Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln; Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln; David Strathairn as William Seward; Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln; James Spader as W.N. Bilbo; Hal Holbrook as Preston Blair; Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens; John Hawkes as Robert Latham; Jackie Earle Haley as Alexander Stephens; Bruce McGill as Edwin Stanton; Tim Blake Nelson as Richard Schell; Joseph Cross as John Hay; Jared Harris as Ulysses S. Grant

Home Release Date

• March 26, 2013
• Steven Spielberg

Distributor

• Touchstone Pictures

Movie Review

Here there be dragons.

So wrote the old cartographers on their parchment maps, sketching fantastical beasts with fins and fangs. They were fearsome and horrible, these monsters, able to swallow ships and devour cities.

Perhaps Abraham Lincoln, a voracious reader, ran across one of those maps one day—a map made when the world’s worst dangers lurked in its blank spaces. Maybe he smiled. Maybe he thought of how much better it would be were these the real monsters—so horrible and so beautiful and so far away. How preferable they’d be to the ones that stalk our streets and devour our families and consume our nation’s very soul.

The year is 1865, and Mr. Lincoln has had his fill of dragons.

One is named War—a gluttonous beast that has fed on the country for four sickening years. Hundreds of thousands have died at its feet, lost in its bloody maw. America’s forests and fields are covered in corpses. The streets are alive with the cry of mothers and children, mourning the beloved dead.

Another is called Slavery, a demon that’s torn at the country since its inception and before—mocking its hypocrisy, decrying the duplicity of its declaration that “All men are created equal” when so many live in chains.

Now, finally, Lincoln feels the time is right to slay a monster or two. The rebellious South is exhausted and ready to plead for peace. Slavery may, with a little luck, be wiped out through an act of Congress—the 13th Amendment.

But there’s a catch: End the war, and the Confederate South will insist on preserving slavery. Free the slaves, and the South will have no incentive to make peace.

“It’s either the Amendment or this Confederate peace,” William Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state, tells him. “You cannot have both.”

We know how this story ends. We read it in the Constitution, hear it in the ringing words of civil rights advocates, see it engraved on the tombs of soldiers and sewn to a field of blue on a flag that now boasts a full 50 stars.

Lincoln is the story of monsters, the man who slew them, and the price he paid to do so.

Positive Elements

Lincoln led the country through the bloodiest conflict in its history and, while so doing, reversed a horrific evil that had plagued it from its inception. And while Daniel Day-Lewis’ layered portrayal of the United States’ 16th president informs us that Lincoln was a more complex character than we sometimes want to believe, we also observe a host of reasons why Lincoln was so successful then and so revered now.

We first see Lincoln visiting his troops, listening patiently as soldiers recite his own Gettysburg Address. Indeed, the film makes a point of stressing Lincoln’s almost boundless patience—enduring the petty requests of constituents with a kindly smile, chuckling off his cabinet’s combustibility, absorbing the occasional sideswipe from his political friends and foes with grace, even when he has to force it. His style is not to dazzle with brilliance, but to guide and cajole; he spins yarns to illustrate his point, disarming his opponents with self-deprecating humor.

Some consider Lincoln’s patience and down-home style to be a political liability, and we hear how Lincoln can seem to dawdle on almost every decision that needs to be made. Every decision except one: the 13th Amendment, which Lincoln wants to speed through a lame-duck session of Congress in less than a month. In his rush to pass the thing, he utilizes every trick in his arsenal to get the work done. (More about those “tricks” later.)

Amazingly, as he drives toward his goal, Lincoln never loses sight of his family. He dotes on his little boy, Tad, and during the House of Representative’s critical Amendment vote, the president is not pacing in his office. He is with his son. He, with very few exceptions, does his very best to help his wife Mary, who’s been driven practically insane by their boy Willie’s death two years earlier. He encourages her to stay strong—put on a brave face for his sake and for the nation’s. He struggles with whether to let his oldest boy, Robert, join the military or keep him safe at home for Mary’s sake. (Lincoln eventually allows it, knowing Robert would be ashamed for the rest of his life if he didn’t serve.)

Lincoln shows grace, pardoning a 16-year-old soldier for an act of cowardice. He shows courage, making horrifically difficult decisions that risk alienating his friends, his supporters and even his wife.

Spiritual Elements

America during the Civil War was a deeply religious country. And everyone, it seems, tried to enlist God to their side.

“Congress must never declare equal those whom God created unequal!” thunders New York Representative Fernando Wood. Thaddeus Stevens, a powerful congressional abolitionist, retorts that such talk insults God. When an African-American servant tells Lincoln she’s sure the Amendment will pass—that God will see to it—Lincoln quips, “I wish He had chosen an instrument more wieldy than the House of Representatives.”

A worried father named Preston Blair pleads with Lincoln to open the door to peace “in the name of gentle Christ.” African-Americans raise or fold their hands in thanksgiving when the Amendment passes. We see and hear people asking for God’s blessing or guidance.

Lincoln talks about his longing to visit the Holy Land and walk in the footsteps of David and Solomon. Mary chides Abe and herself for not being necessarily fit to take such a spiritual pilgrimage, seeing as how they’re taking a buggy ride on Good Friday. Lincoln tells a humorous story about a parrot who was taught to say, “Today’s the day the world shall end, as the Scripture has foretold.” The punch line? The owner eventually shot the parrot, thus “confirming” the Scripture.

We hear hints that Mary tried to commune with Willie after he died. (In real life, Mary was fascinated by an unmoored spirituality in vogue at the time and held séances in Willie’s room.) She half-jokingly refers to herself as a soothsayer.

Sexual & romantic Content

We see Mary in a state of partial undress, wearing her undergarments. Stevens shares a non-marital bed with his African-American housekeeper. (The vibe is that of an old married couple—companionable, not passionate.)

Violent Content

The film opens on a battle scene; people are stabbed with bayonets, beaten and pushed deep into the mud to drown. The sequence isn’t bloody, but it vividly conveys the horrors of war. Toward the end of the war, Lincoln visits a battlefield strewn with corpses. One mangled body has its torso splayed open, devoid of organs. We see a city burning.

When Lincoln visits wounded war vets, his son Robert follows orderlies pushing a cart that’s dribbling blood along the way. The conveyance stops at a huge pit filled with human limbs, and the orderlies unveil the cart’s contents—newly amputated legs and arms. They dump the contents in the pit as people begin to fill in the hole with dirt.

When Robert and his father get into an argument, Lincoln slaps him across the face.

Lincoln is shown on his deathbed, a bloodstained pillow beneath his head.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word. Four or five s-words. Bigots hurl derogatory terms for African-Americans several times, including the n-word. We hear “b‑‑ch,” “p‑‑‑,” “h‑‑‑” and “bloody.” God’s name is combined with “d‑‑n” more than a dozen times. Jesus’ name is abused once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Several characters are shown drinking (wine, beer and other presumably alcoholic beverages) and smoking (mostly cigars). Preston Blair’s wife instructs a servant to get him drunk during a long journey so he’ll be able to sleep. Lobbyists seem inebriated in a scene or two.

Other noteworthy Elements

Remember those “tricks” Lincoln uses to push his Amendment through Congress? Well, politics can be a dirty business, and not even our most revered president escapes the muck here. From the beginning, Lincoln admits that the Emancipation Proclamation (enacted two years earlier) required some serious contortions to legally justify it. Amendment 13 will clear up any potential illegality … but to get it passed he has Seward hire some underhanded “lobbyists” to help garner the votes needed. These lobbyists are forbidden from using money to outright bribe anyone, but they’re free to offer jobs in exchange for “yes” votes.

When that’s not enough, Lincoln resorts to other means. He (in a roundabout way) tells one congressman that he’ll have him booted out of Congress unless he votes “yes.” He perpetually sidesteps rumors that he’s entertaining peace offers from the Confederacy—but in fact he is.

On the morning of the vote, the opposition demands the president respond to rumors that there’s a Confederate delegation in town. Lincoln says there is no delegation in Washington, D.C., “as far as I know.” It’s true, but only semantically so: He stalled the delegation outside town. When one principled adjunct refuses to deliver that message to Congress, Lincoln gently takes the missive out of his hands and gives it to a less scrupulous messenger.

Lincoln tells an off-color story involving a British bathroom and a picture of George Washington. He threatens to send Mary to the madhouse.

History has frozen Lincoln into something like the American conscience: kindly, principled, winsome, idealistic. And he was, indeed, all of those things.

But through that lens we lose sight of how politically savvy and shrewd he was. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is indeed a dramatization, but the sorts of steps we see Lincoln take here are not fiction—not according to historians. And portions of the screenplay are based on a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Lincoln didn’t rise above the game: He played it with the best of them. And when Thaddeus Stevens, both his ally and critic, chastises him for his seeming lack of a moral compass���his willingness to compromise, his occasional obfuscations—Lincoln rebuts him, naturally, with a story. He relates how as a backwoodsmen, he learned it was sometimes necessary to deviate from true north in order to evade a swamp or gorge. If you plow straight on toward your goal regardless of obstacles that might terminate your trip forever, Lincoln asks, “What’s the use of knowing true north?”

Lincoln, then, like the country he led, was both an idealist and a pragmatist. Were his actions admirable? Appalling? Perhaps a bit of both. And just as Lincoln got his own hands muddy to pass that invaluable 13th Amendment, his onscreen character feels a bit muddy to those of us used to seeing him as a gleaming marble statue.

A postscript: Did Abraham Lincoln really spout the s-word? Did his colleagues use the f-word? This film places those foul words (and others) into the mouths of its historical characters, but James McPherson, a Lincoln biographer and consultant on the movie, says, “The profanity actually bothered me, especially Lincoln’s use of it. It struck me as completely unlikely—a modern injection into Lincoln’s rhetoric.” The Hollywood Reporter reports that McPherson says he emailed his objections to the screenwriter after reading an early draft, “but I see that that language made it in the movie anyhow.” David Barton, who has appeared as a history expert on Fox News, CNN and other outlets, furthers McPherson’s point by saying, “There are records of [Lincoln] confronting military generals if he heard about them cursing. Furthermore, the f-word used by [W.N.] Bilbo was virtually nonexistent in that day and it definitely would not have been used around Lincoln. If Lincoln had heard it, it is certain that he would instantly have delivered a severe rebuke.”

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

Latest Reviews

City of Dreams

Weekly Reviews Straight to your Inbox!

Want to stay Plugged In?

Our weekly newsletter will keep you in the loop on the biggest things happening in entertainment and technology. Sign up today, and we’ll send you a chapter from the new Plugged In book, Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family , that focuses on how to implement a “screentime reset” in your family!

Our Favorite Roger Reviews: Lincoln

In celebration of Roger Ebert , we are reprinting the favorite reviews and articles of our writers and other distinguished readers…

Roger’s review of Steven Spielberg ’s “ Lincoln ” resonated with me because he did not focus on identifying what was and was not historically accurate which, while important, wasn’t the purpose of the film.  Instead, he focused on the cinematic, emotional impression of Abraham Lincoln as a human being and leader during a horrific war and existential crisis for our democracy.  And he related that Lincoln to the the Lincoln he had learned about over his own lifetime.— Erin Mast

“LINCOLN” review by Roger Ebert

originally published on November 7th, 2012

I’ve rarely been more aware than during Steven Spielberg’s “ Lincoln ” that Abraham Lincoln was a plain-spoken, practical, down-to-earth man from the farmlands of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. He had less than a year of formal education and taught himself through his hungry reading of great books. I still recall from a childhood book the image of him taking a piece of charcoal and working out mathematics by writing on the back of a shovel.

Lincoln lacked social polish but he had great intelligence and knowledge of human nature. The hallmark of the man, performed so powerfully by Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln,” is calm self-confidence, patience and a willingness to play politics in a realistic way. The film focuses on the final months of Lincoln’s life, including the passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, the surrender of the Confederacy and his assassination. Rarely has a film attended more carefully to the details of politics.

Lincoln believed slavery was immoral, but he also considered the 13th Amendment a masterstroke in cutting away the financial foundations of the Confederacy. In the film, the passage of the amendment is guided by William Seward ( David Strathairn ), his secretary of state, and by Rep. Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones), the most powerful abolitionist in the House. Neither these nor any other performances in the film depend on self-conscious histrionics; Jones in particular portrays a crafty codger with some secret hiding places in his heart.

The capital city of Washington is portrayed here as roughshod gathering of politicians on the make. The images by Janusz Kaminski , Spielberg’s frequent cinematographer, use earth tones and muted indoor lighting. The White House is less a temple of state than a gathering place for wheelers and dealers. This ambience reflects the descriptions in Gore Vidal’s historical novel “Lincoln,” although the political and personal details in Tony Kushner’s concise, revealing dialogue is based on “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book is well-titled. This is a film not about an icon of history, but about a president who was scorned by some of his political opponents as just a hayseed from the backwoods.

Lincoln is not above political vote buying. He offers jobs, promotions, titles and pork barrel spending. He isn’t even slightly reluctant to employ the low-handed tactics of his chief negotiators (Tim Blake Nelson , James Spader , John Hawkes ). That’s how the game is played, and indeed we may be reminded of the arm-bending used to pass the civil rights legislation by Lyndon B. Johnson, the subject of another biography by Goodwin.

Daniel Day-Lewis, who has a lock on an Oscar nomination, modulates Lincoln. He is soft-spoken, a little hunched, exhausted after the years of war, concerned that no more troops die. He communicates through stories and parables. At his side is his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln ( Sally Field , typically sturdy and spunky), who is sometimes seen as a social climber but here is focused as wife and mother. She has already lost one son in the war and fears to lose the other. This boy, Robert Todd Lincoln ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ), refuses the privileges of family.

There are some battlefields in “Lincoln” but the only battle scene is at the opening, when the words of the Gettysburg Address are spoken with the greatest possible impact, and not by Lincoln. Kushner also smoothly weaves the wording of the 13th Amendment into the film without making it sound like an obligatory history lesson.

The film ends soon after Lincoln’s assassination. I suppose audiences will expect that to be included. There is an earlier shot, when it could have ended, of President Lincoln walking away from the camera after his amendment has been passed. The rest belongs to history.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Leave a comment

Related articles.

Thumbnails 8/15/24: Six Must-Reads You Don’t Want To Miss This Week

Interview with Next Avenue: Chaz Ebert Wants You To Give a FECK

Chaz Ebert Calls for Candidates and Elected Officials to Give a FECK and Pledge to Restore Civility to Political Discourse

The Gene Siskel Film Center Celebrates the First and Last of Famous Filmmakers with their Entrances & Exits Series

Popular reviews.

The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem

Hummingbirds

Despicable Me 4

The best movie reviews, in your inbox.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 73% Blink Twice Link to Blink Twice
• 96% Strange Darling Link to Strange Darling
• 86% Between the Temples Link to Between the Temples

New TV Tonight

• 96% Only Murders in the Building: Season 4
• 86% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• 95% Terminator Zero: Season 1
• 69% Kaos: Season 1
• 83% City of God: The Fight Rages On: Season 1
• -- Here Come the Irish: Season 1
• -- K-Pop Idols: Season 1
• -- Horror's Greatest: Season 1
• -- After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 70% Kaos: Season 1
• 100% Dark Winds: Season 2
• 92% Bad Monkey: Season 1
• 78% Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• 100% Pachinko: Season 2
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 86% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2 Link to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

The Best Shows on Amazon Prime Video to Watch Right Now (August 2024)

100 Best Netflix Series To Watch Right Now (August 2024)

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice First Reviews: Michael Keaton’s Return as Betelgeuse is Worth the Wait

13 Must-Watch Films at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival

• Trending on RT
• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• TV Premiere Dates
• Venice Film Festival
• Renewed and Cancelled TV

Lincoln Reviews

Spielberg's epic plays like The West Wing in stovepipe hats, and although it may be a little stolid for some, the film brings to life a moment of 19th-century political brinkmanship in captivating style.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 12, 2024

Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a performance for the ages in Steven Spielberg's solid historical drama. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 9, 2024

Lincoln is immersive and respectable, and one of Spielberg’s most disciplined undertakings as a filmmaker.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 21, 2022

While this isn’t a movie dependent on flashy visuals, Spielberg still gives a lot of attention to details. He also goes to great lengths to make this the most vivid portrayal of the 16th president ever to be put on film.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 23, 2022

As a whole, "Lincoln" is a monumental effort that can be valued on an assortment of levels.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 11, 2022

Lincoln is a triumph.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 8, 2022

... Spielberg and company are more interested in the work behind the scenes, and they present it with flair and wit absent from the theatrics of political showmanship. This is the story of how leaders and their teams get things done.

Full Review | Jul 9, 2022

A history lesson at its core, but it's cleverly buried beneath one magnificent performance and several strong supporters.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 2, 2020

A good film blessed with an extraordinary and surefire Oscar caliber performance from Daniel Day-Lewis.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 14, 2020

'Lincoln' is not only an avid biopic, it is a pleasant historical lesson that captures the thinking of an era where social ideas were diffused by a political party duality. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 25, 2020

In a truly epic first act, the equal of anything in the David Lean canon, Steven Spielberg and his screenwriting collaborator, playwright Tony Kushner, frame the awful dilemma Lincoln faced in what would prove to be the last four months of his life.

Full Review | Jun 19, 2020

Spielberg has put together a film that is reverent but not fawning; familiar but not clichéd; measured but not ponderous.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2020

There is a reason the eternal flame of Lincoln burns so brightly to this day. Thanks to Steven Spielberg, you can see the legacy, meet the man and "feel" the fabric of history...

Full Review | Nov 27, 2019

Lincoln returns dignity to politics.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 13, 2019

The recurrent themes that crop up again and again in the film are those of sagacity, maturity and the necessary compromises that come as part of ageing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 31, 2019

A haunting performance that is one of Lewis' finest in a career filled with towering achievements, proving yet again that he is arguably our greatest living actor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 8, 2019

Lincoln's flaws don't keep it from succeeding on several levels: as a showcase for Daniel Day-Lewis; and as an uncomfortable and pointed reminder about the hideous racism that's an unavoidable piece of America's makeup.

Full Review | Feb 26, 2019

Lincoln works as well as it does because the Abraham Lincoln biopic chooses to focus on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 18, 2019

A surprisingly low-key character piece -- which is all the better for it's subtlety.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 8, 2019

Lincoln is a revealing window of the backroom political deals that go into the process of the abolition of slavery and uniting of the nation, as well as Lincoln's own personal relationships with his family.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2019

• TexasExes.org
• Scholarships
• The Alcalde
• Gameday Central

• Current Issue
• Association

Spielberg’s Lincoln: A Historian’s Review

By Nicholas Roland in 40 Acres , Special on November 28, 2012 at 1:30 pm | 22 Comments

As Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln draws crowds to theaters, a UT history graduate student reviews the film through a historian’s lens.

His verdict: while flawed, lincoln is a solid, mostly accurate portrait of a complex man..

Steven Spielberg’s latest historical drama chronicles the 16th president’s final months and his struggle for passage of the 13th Amendment by the House of Representatives in 1865. Lincoln’s enduring popularity means that this film will be subjected to intense scrutiny and debate by historians, movie reviewers, and culture warriors alike.

Fortunately, Lincoln is blessed with a remarkably accomplished cast. Daniel Day Lewis is Abraham Lincoln. Having supposedly read over 100 books on Lincoln in preparation for the role, he manages to convincingly replicate many aspects of Lincoln’s persona and physical aura: Lincoln’s purportedly high voice, his wry sense of humor and knack for storytelling, his slouched posture and awkward gait, and the overwhelming weariness incurred by the “fiery trial” of war all ring true.

Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Fields) is portrayed as a more or less sympathetic character, in accordance with more recent scholarship rejecting long-standing depictions of Mrs. Lincoln as a shrew, possibly suffering from a mental illness. Fields plays a First Lady who is grief-stricken over the loss of her son Willie and weary from the stress of a wartime presidential marriage. During a scene at a White House reception, she draws on her social training as a daughter of the Kentucky elite to skillfully defend against political critics.

Secretary of State William H. Seward (David Strathairn) also appears as an important source of support for Lincoln. Seward cuts patronage deals with lame duck Democratic Congressmen in order to help secure the passage of the 13th Amendment and acts as a sort of political muse to Lincoln. Seward harangues and cajoles Lincoln on policy and political strategy but ultimately serves as a loyal ally in carrying out Lincoln’s intent, a depiction born out in the historical record.

Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) is also a convincing secondary character, albeit with some historical problems. A leader of the radical wing of the Republican Party, Stevens is accurately portrayed as an advocate of racial equality and a vehement opponent of secessionists. However, a scene revealing the purported relationship between Stevens and his African-American housekeeper risks conveying the sense that this relationship was the primary motivation for Stevens’ crusade for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

Despite the excellent performances turned in by the star-studded cast, Lincoln has a number of shortcomings from a historian’s point of view. Based on Doris Kearns-Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln , the film is at times a taut political thriller and at times the inspirational story of the final abolition of American slavery. The choice to focus on the last few months of Lincoln’s presidency is appropriate given the ultimate outcome of the American Civil War: the defeat of the Confederacy and the end of legal slavery. However, this narrow focus glosses over Lincoln’s famously ambiguous views on slavery and racial equality.

Spielberg’s Lincoln appears committed to rapidly ending slavery and even suggests that suffrage might eventually be extended to black men. In his lifetime, Lincoln was consistently criticized by radical Republicans and African-American leaders such as Frederick Douglass for his equivocation on slavery and lenient plans for Reconstruction. Lincoln seems to have held a lifelong commitment to the free-soil ideology that every man, white or black, has the right to earn for himself by the sweat of his brow. Despite this conviction, Lincoln repeatedly stated that he wished to preserve the Union, either with or without slavery. Lincoln viewed the Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of black troops as a wartime expedient to preserve the Union.

Spielberg risks reviving the Great Emancipator myth. The best evidence suggests that Abraham Lincoln personally abhorred slavery as an institution while simultaneously denying the concept of racial equality.

Some historians have argued that Lincoln’s personal beliefs underwent a significant change during the last year of the Civil War, and Lincoln did in fact suggest to the reconstructed government of Louisiana in 1864 that “very intelligent” black men and “those who have fought gallantly in our ranks” might be given access to the ballot box. As depicted by the film, during the 1864 Presidential campaign Lincoln threw his support behind passage of the 13th Amendment and was active in securing its passage in 1865. But he never became a radical abolitionist like Thaddeus Stevens, or an outright advocate of racial equality. Lincoln continued to put forth plans for the resettlement of freedmen to the Caribbean even after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and possibly even after the passage of the 13th Amendment.

Early in the war, when Lincoln strenuously wished to avoid confronting slavery, black enslaved workers fled to federal lines and congregated around federal camps such as Fortress Monroe, Va. Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1861 in reaction to this development, marking the first movement by the federal government to separate rebellious slaveholders from their enslaved workers. While Lincoln continued to insist that the war was a struggle to preserve the Union, African Americans did not wait for the Emancipation Proclamation to turn the war into much more than a sectional conflict. Slavery was destroyed as much by their individual actions as by the political workings of white politicians.

Perhaps most inexplicably, the movie does a poor job of identifying the various cabinet officials and Congressmen central to the plot. The average moviegoer is likely to be somewhat unsure of the exact role or importance of several characters. This is especially curious given the fact that obscure members of a Confederate peace delegation such as Confederate Senator R.M.T. Hunter and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell are explicitly identified onscreen.

On the whole, Spielberg’s Lincoln is a masterful politician and a dynamic character, able to carefully mediate between his own evolving beliefs and the political realities of his age. This interpretation falls solidly in line with the mainstream of Lincoln scholarship. For an incredibly complex, sphinxlike figure such as Abraham Lincoln, perhaps we shouldn’t expect a more thorough interpretation from Hollywood.

Nicholas Roland  is a graduate student in the UT history department. His academic interests include the 19th Century American South, Texas History, Military History, and Historical Memory. 

This review first appeared on Not Even Past .

Photos from top:

Series of Thaddeus Stevens photographs by Matthew Brady, sometime between 1860 and 1865 (Image courtesy of Brady National Photographic Art Gallery)

Lydia Hamilton Smith, housekeeper and alleged common law wife of Thaddeus Stevens, photographed sometime prior to 1868 (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Mary Todd Lincoln, 1846-7 (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Lincoln depicted as the Great Emancipator in Thomas Ball’s statue, Lincoln Park, Washington, DC (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Promotional studio image of Abraham Lincoln (left) and Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln (right)

Images used under Fair Use Guidelines

Tags: 13th amendment , Abraham Lincoln , civil war , Daniel Day Lewis , Doris Kearns-Goodwin , Lincoln , Movie review , Sally Fields , Steven Spielberg , Tommy Lee Jones , UT history

Share this article

22 Comments

Post a comment.

Click here to cancel reply.

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Starting Here: Meet the 2024 President’s Leadership Award Winners

World-Changers Reconnect With the University Through the Tower Fellows Program

Taking Over From Legendary Swim Coach Eddie Reese Is Another Legend

Racing Ahead: The 2024 President’s Impact Award

The Long Game Brings Local Heroes From the Putting Green to the Silver Screen

Longhorn From Birth

Forgotten Longhorns Rescued from Infamous Conwoman’s Ranch

Live Music Campus of the World

You’ll Meet a Longhorn Anywhere You Go

4 Notable Longhorns With Nontraditional Degree Plans—and More We Want to Return

Copyright © 2024 The Alcalde. All rights reserved.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

• As the Civil War rages on, U.S President Abraham Lincoln struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on his decision to emancipate the slaves.
• In 1865, as the American Civil War winds inexorably toward conclusion, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln endeavors to achieve passage of the landmark constitutional amendment which will forever ban slavery from the United States. However, his task is a race against time, for peace may come at any time, and if it comes before the amendment is passed, the returning southern states will stop it before it can become law. Lincoln must, by almost any means possible, obtain enough votes from a recalcitrant Congress before peace arrives and it is too late. Yet the president is torn, as an early peace would save thousands of lives. As the nation confronts its conscience over the freedom of its entire population, Lincoln faces his own crisis of conscience -- end slavery or end the war. — Jim Beaver <[email protected]>
• It's January, 1865, and US President Abraham Lincoln has just started his second term in office as an immensely popular leader, especially among his supporters, because of his down home attitude. However, the country is in turmoil with the Civil War entering its fourth year and having taken the lives of many a soldier on both sides. Lincoln believes that passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution - which would abolish slavery - would most importantly achieve something in which he believes to his core, but also end the war as slavery is a large part of the raison d'etre for it. The Amendment has already passed in the Senate, and is scheduled for vote in the House of Representatives at the end of the month. While he is assured of yes votes from his fellow Republicans, he and his team have to work hard behind the scenes to assure enough yes votes from Democrats, which may require some compromise in other areas. But other factors may also come into play on the vote, such as the Confederate forces in the war issuing their own compromise to end the war but keep slavery. Meanwhile, Lincoln also deals with his oft supportive but oft tumultuous relationship with wife Mary Todd Lincoln, and their latest possible rift in oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln's want to leave law school to enlist. — Huggo
• With the nation embroiled in still another year with the high death count of Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln brings the full measure of his passion, humanity and political skill to what would become his defining legacy: to end the war and permanently abolish slavery through the 13th Amendment. Having great courage, acumen and moral fortitude, Lincoln pushes forward to compel the nation, and those in government who oppose him, to aim toward a greater good for all mankind. — Jwelch5742
• January 1865. Four years into the destructive American Civil War and with the nation divided by conflict, newly re-elected US President Abraham Lincoln sought a way to end the bloodshed. More than anything, the influential politician wanted to pass the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, restore peace, and reunite the country. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln enlisted the help of Secretary of State William H. Seward to secure Democratic support and find twenty House Democrats to vote for the bill to outlaw slavery. With unwavering dedication and courage, Abraham Lincoln inspired a pivotal decision that changed the course of history. — Nick Riganas
• Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) recounts President Abraham Lincoln's efforts, during January 1865, to obtain passage for the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the United States House of Representatives, which would formally abolish slavery in the country. Expecting the Civil War to end within a month but concerned that his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation may be discarded by the courts once the war has concluded and the 13th Amendment defeated by the returning slave states, Lincoln feels it is imperative to pass the amendment by the end of January, thus removing any possibility that slaves who have already been freed may be re-enslaved. The Radical Republicans fear the amendment will merely be defeated by some who wish to delay its passage; the support of the amendment by Republicans in the border states is not yet assured either, since they prioritize the issue of ending the war. Even if all of them are ultimately brought on board, the amendment will still require the support of several Democratic congressmen if it is to pass. With dozens of Democrats having just become lame ducks after losing their re-election campaigns in the fall of 1864, some of Lincoln's advisers believe that he should wait until the new Republican-heavy Congress is seated, presumably giving the amendment an easier road to passage. Lincoln, however, remains adamant about having the amendment in place and the issue of slavery settled before the war is concluded and the southern states readmitted into the Union. Lincoln's hopes for passage of the amendment rely upon the support of the Republican Party founder Francis Preston Blair, the only one whose influence can ensure that all members of the western and border state conservative Republican faction will back the amendment. With Union victory in the Civil War seeming highly likely and greatly anticipated, but not yet a fully accomplished fact, Blair is keen to end the hostilities as soon as possible. Therefore, in return for his support, Blair insists that Lincoln allow him to immediately engage the Confederate government in peace negotiations. This is a complication to Lincoln's amendment efforts since he knows that a significant portion of the support, he has garnered for the amendment is from the Radical Republican faction for whom a negotiated peace that leaves slavery intact is anathema. If there seems to be a realistic possibility of ending the war even without guaranteeing the end of slavery, the needed support for the amendment from the more conservative wing (which does not favor abolition) will certainly fall away. Unable to proceed without Blair's support, however, Lincoln reluctantly authorizes Blair's mission. In the meantime, Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward (Stephen Henderson) work on the issue of securing the necessary Democratic votes for the amendment. Lincoln suggests that they concentrate on the lame duck Democrats, as they have already lost re-election and thus will feel free to vote as they please, rather than having to worry about how their vote will affect a future re-election campaign. Since those members also will soon be in need of employment and Lincoln will have many federal jobs to fill as he begins his second term, he sees this as a tool he can use to his advantage. Though Lincoln and Seward are unwilling to offer direct monetary bribes to the Democrats, they authorize agents to quietly go about contacting Democratic congressmen with offers of federal jobs in exchange for their voting in favor of the amendment. With Confederate envoys ready to meet with Lincoln, he instructs them to be kept out of Washington, as the amendment approaches a vote on the House floor. At the moment of truth, Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy lee Jones) decides to moderate his statements about racial equality to help the amendment's chances of passage. A rumor circulates that there are Confederate representatives in Washington ready to discuss peace, prompting both Democrats and conservative Republicans to advocate postponing the vote on the amendment. Lincoln explicitly denies that such envoys are in or will be in the city - technically a truthful statement, since he had ordered them to be kept away - and the vote proceeds, narrowly passing by a margin of two votes. When Lincoln subsequently meets with the Confederates, he tells them that slavery cannot be restored as the North is united for ratification of the amendment, and that several of the southern states' reconstructed legislatures would also vote to ratify. After the amendment's passage, the film's narrative shifts forward two months, portraying Lincoln's visit to the battlefield at Petersburg, Virginia, where he exchanges a few words with General Grant. Shortly thereafter, Grant receives General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. On the evening of April 14, 1865, Lincoln is in a meeting with members of his cabinet, discussing possible future measures to enfranchise blacks, when he is reminded that Mrs. Lincoln is waiting to take them to their evening at Ford's Theatre. That night, while Tad Lincoln is viewing Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp at Grover's Theater, a man announces that the President has been shot. The next morning his physician pronounces him dead. The film concludes with a flashback to Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address.

Contribute to this page

• IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
• Learn more about contributing

More from this title

More to explore, recently viewed.

Screen Rant

No time to spy: a loud house movie (2024).

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Your Rating

Kyle Marshall

Reviews (0)

Have You Watched It?

Be the first to leave your review.

Liliana Mumy

Nika futterman, brian stepanek, jessica dicicco, lara jill miller, catherine taber, seasons (4).

Season 1 (2016)

Season 2 (2018), season 3 (2022), season 4 (2026), users reviews (125).

We want to hear from you! Share your opinions in the review below and remember to keep it respectful.

Your comment has not been saved

Latest Stories

The loud family falls into a spy adventure in no time to spy: a loud house movie trailer, related titles.

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

BABY REINDEER