A pleasure to watch, because of the acting by Ward, Shaw, Bancroft and Hardy; and Anthony Hopkins as Lloyd George, the Liberal lion, Parliamentary luminary and notorious lecher. Jared Feldschreiber

Young Winston is good and workmanlike at the simple business of telling its story. The battlefield scenes are colorful, the cavalry charges are thundering, the glimpses of aristocratic society are refined. The movie probably does a pretty good job of giving people what they’re willing to settle for in the way of a story about Churchill’s early life. It’s just too bad it’s so dutiful about it. Here is a man who became known throughout the world for his finely barbed wit, yet — on the evidence of his movie — he said only one amusing thing before his 25th birthday. Roger Ebert