David Nusair Reel Film Reviews Jul 22, 2025 3/4

...an awfully slight premise that’s employed to consistently watchable (yet rarely engrossing) effect by the various filmmakers...

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Brendan Cassidy InSession Film Jun 18, 2024

Dumbo is one of Disney’s most efficiently told films, clocking in at just over one hour yet conveying such powerful notions on discrimination and motherhood.

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Carson Timar ButteredPopcorn Oct 21, 2023

Outside of the film's animation, there is little for the audience to truly appreciate outside of the film's more basic emotional swings.

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Siegfried Kracauer The Nation Nov 23, 2020

Dumbo [is] a charming picture filled with marvelously conceived episodes. Despite this, Disney continues in it a development the problematic nature of which has grown more and more apparent since Snow-White.

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Mike Massie Gone With The Twins Aug 5, 2020 7/10

The first half of the film barely contains any dialogue, as Dumbo grows up without any need for conversation - he actually never speaks throughout the film.

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Rachel Wagner rachelsreviews.net May 9, 2019 A

I love stories about friendship and Dumbo certainly gives us a great one.

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Matt Brunson Film Frenzy Mar 28, 2019 4/4

The imagination that went into conceptualizing each segment is astounding, with the drunken "pink elephants" sequence a particular highlight.

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Josh Larsen LarsenOnFilm Mar 3, 2019 3/4

...most interested in capturing the shadings and sounds of sadness.

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Jake Wilson The Age (Australia) Sep 15, 2018

Though the character's eventual comic triumph is never in doubt, there are traumatic moments along the way, including an extraordinary, nightmarish drunk sequence that suggests the animators had early access to LSD.

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Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Jul 31, 2013 A

A Disney animation classic for all ages and all times.

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James Plath Movie Metropolis Dec 29, 2011 8/10

Dumbo was for Disney what The Old Man and the Sea was for Hemingway: a simple but powerful story that's brilliantly rendered and succeeds precisely because it is so simple, archetypal, and true.

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Jolene Mendez Entertainment Spectrum Sep 23, 2011 3/5

Another magical experience that will have the mother's crying and the kids cheering!

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Rob Humanick Slant Magazine Sep 21, 2011 4/4

Perfection, thy name is Dumbo.

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Mary Ann Brussat Spirituality & Practice Sep 21, 2011 3/5

A 1941 Disney animated feature about a harassed little elephant with big ears and his friendship with an imaginative mouse.

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Nell Minow Common Sense Media Dec 22, 2010 4/5

Disney classic will still make you cry!

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Tim Brayton Antagony & Ecstasy Oct 31, 2009 10/10

One of the most emotionally potent of all animated movies; I might be inclined to say, of all movies, period.

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Jon Fortgang Film4 Sep 2, 2008

Touching, comic, visually inventive and emotionally convincing, this remains a jewel in the crown of Disney's golden age.

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Dave Kehr Chicago Reader Sep 2, 2008

It's one of Disney's most charming and perfectly proportioned films, uninflated by the cultural pretensions Uncle Walt was fond of slipping in.

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Variety Staff Variety Aug 28, 2008

There's a pleasant little story, plenty of pathos mixed with the large doses of humor, a number of appealing new animal characters, lots of good music, and the usual Disney skillfulness in technique.

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Kevin Carr 7M Pictures Jun 8, 2006 5/5

It just tells a great story and has beautiful moments of powerful emotion that can bring a tear to the eye even 65 years after it was made.

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