It's impossible to begrudge the vertiginous energy and feeling that make this one of the great American musicals, and one radically told through dance.
- Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph, September 16, 2011
A good stab at 'Romeo And Juliet', if a little on the anaemic side, but it's the singing and dancing which will really get your pulse racing.
- , Film4, September 16, 2011
Unhappily, the film shares a serious flaw in the essential conception of the show; both are founded on a phony literary analogy and on some potentially vicious pseudo-sociology.
- , TIME Magazine, February 18, 2009
Leonard Bernstein's rich, eloquent and demanding score is still a powerful experience.
- Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK], February 19, 2008
Technically stunning, with dazzling choreography matching an unforgettable score.
- Fran Hortop, Film4, February 19, 2008
Decent 1961 adaptation of the Bernstein-Robbins musical, if you can handle Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood in the leads.
- Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader, February 09, 2007
How does the film -- which won ten Oscars on its 1961 release -- stand up now? Very well indeed.
- Dave Calhoun, Time Out, January 26, 2006
It's the groundbreaking combination of toe-tapping tunes and wailing pathos, which makes this a truly arresting musical.
- Stella Papamichael, BBC, August 23, 2005
It is a great movie ... in parts.
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, April 09, 2004
The marvel is that the film still works so well.
- Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune, February 04, 2004
What they have done with West Side Story in knocking it down and moving it from stage to screen is to reconstruct its fine material into nothing short of a cinema masterpiece.
- Bosley Crowther, New York Times, May 20, 2003
West Side Story is a beautifully-mounted, impressive, emotion-ridden and violent musical which, in its stark approach to a raging social problem and realism of unfoldment
- Dennis Harvey, Variety, February 13, 2001
Each song from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim is a belter.
- Kim Newman, Empire Magazine, January 01, 2000
It still represents a brave and effective fusion of serious and fantasy elements, and offers two and one-half hours of solid entertainment.
- James Berardinelli, ReelViews, January 01, 2000
PG