- 9
Jamie Foxx is Ray Charles.
—Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times
- 9
...a triumphant musical movie-bio...
—Michael Wilmington Chicago Tribune
- 9
Even with a two-and-a-half-hour running time, Ray virtually flies through the ups and downs of his life on the strength of an amazing soundtrack (no surprise there) and Foxx's performance?the likes of which we haven't seen since his interpretation of Wanda on In Living Color.
—Paul Ulane Maxim
- 9
Jamie Foxx, in his brilliant performance in Ray, captures those joyfully severe movements with uncanny spiritual precision, to the point that you forget you're watching an impersonation.
—Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly
- 8
...a potent and invigorating portrait of genius, thanks to Jamie Foxx's performance and to the music of Ray Charles himself.
—A. O. Scott New York Times
- 8
...turns out to be a proudly conventional film that combines an involving true story, irresistible music and a charismatic performance in a way that makes us not only forgive but actually almost relish how standard the presentation is.
—Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times
- 8
Ray is Jamie Foxx's ticket to Oscar night.
— E!
- 8
A great piece of acting can knock the hell out of tainted preconceptions. Or, in the case of Ray, director Taylor Hackford's electrifying take on the joyous art and pained soul of Ray Charles, it can move a film from the shoals of biopic banality to the heights of inspiration. Jamie Foxx gets so far inside the man and his music that he and Ray Charles seem to breathe as one.
—Peter Travers Rolling Stone
- 8
...full of energy, raucous good feeling and a generous sampling of memorable tunes...
—Leah Rozen People
- 7
It's conventional in approach and sometimes sentimental, even corny, in its content. But there were so many fascinating overtones in Mr. Charles's life and career that any account of them is bound to be riveting at least part of the time.
—David Sterritt Christian Science Monitor
- 7
It's fitting then that Ray is about as loyal a portrait as its subject could have wanted, although for our sake, Hackford might have given us more of the man and less of the legend.
—Peter Debruge Premiere
- 6
Jamie Foxx is extraordinary in this otherwise conventional biopic...
—Ethan Alter TV Guide
- 6
Soulful, sorrowful, and relatively safe, Ray stalls for extended periods on the lowest points of a legend's life without finding balance and properly celebrating the highs.
—Sean O'Connell filmcritic.com
- 5
...never drops a stitch, methodically working the rise-and-fall-and-rise formula without a single consideration for the viewer's self-respect or the possibility that even famous lives rarely have the shape of stories. Ray is so reflexive that it often seems to be about the procedural mechanics of biopics.
—Michael Atkinson Village Voice
- 5
The great Ray Charles was never this lackluster.
—Kim Morgan Reel
- 5
...even in more gifted hands, Ray the movie could never have measured up to the man himself.
—Kim Morgan LA Weekly
- 4
...drinks lustily from a goblet of hackneyed show-biz and triumph-over-adversity conventions, presenting Charles' remarkable life story as a series of screaming headlines and stunning triumphs.
—Nathan Rabin Onion AV Club
- 4
Foxx's mannered performance fails to convey the complexities beneath Charles's trademark twitches.
—Nick Schager Slant Magazine