David Crawford Radio Times Mar 4, 2026 4/5

Claire Danes plays the gawky Temple with a wide-eyed intensity and is backed by a stellar cast including Julia Ormond as her proud, uncompromising mother, Catherine O'Hara as her kindly aunt, and David Strathairn as an inspirational teacher.

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Ed Bark Uncle Barky Jul 30, 2020 A

As noted, none of this seems like the stuff of riveting drama. It is, though. Still only 30, Danes shows she's now ready and able to take command of any acting challenge put in her path.

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Hank Stuever Washington Post Jul 30, 2020

Temple Grandin is an amazingly assembled, superbly acted, strikingly sweet film about Grandin's life -- and the cows' death.

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Alyssa Rosenberg The Atlantic Jul 30, 2020

HBO's fine biopic serves as an important reminder that people with autism spectrum disorders are individuals rather than collections of tics.

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Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Jul 30, 2020

Temple Grandin turns out to be the kind of biopic Hollywood rarely makes anymore: It's positive, revealing and surprising; an intelligent period piece without sex or violence that's virtually free of profanity.

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Daynah Burnett PopMatters Jul 30, 2020

The film simply asks us to reconsider how we view those with autism, and by the end of the film, it's worked.

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Lenny Ann Low Sydney Morning Herald Jul 30, 2020

What's striking about Temple Grandin is the absence of sentimentality; no syrupy music, no saccharine climax - just a rich glimpse inside a rare mind.

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Tom Sutcliffe Independent (UK) Jul 29, 2020

It is, of course, the kind of role that is notoriously awardable... But there is real nuance here too, in the way that Danes shows you Grandin's increasing ability to manage her own panic and uncertainty

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Joanne Ostrow Denver Post Jul 29, 2020

It helps that Danes is phenomenal, going so deep inside the character as to be unrecognizable to fans of her Romeo + Juliet, Me and Orson Welles and My So-Called Life performances.

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Jennifer Armstrong Entertainment Weekly Jul 29, 2020 A

This thoughtful treatment also helps a severely deglammed Danes transcend a standard awards-bait performance. She in turn gets a nice boost from a strong but understated supporting cast.

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Mark A. Perigard Boston Herald Jul 29, 2020

I keep coming back to Ormond, who can be heartbreaking as the mother who yearns for the hug she will never get but is nonetheless determined that her child's potential will be realized.

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Dale Roe Austin American-Statesman Jul 29, 2020

Danes so completely immerses herself in her character that her performance becomes refreshingly free of actorly artifice.

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Philip Martin Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Jul 29, 2020 87/100

[A] sparkling, inspirational bio-pic that -- while conventionally plotted -- has some tremendous rewards, including Claire Danes' unsentimental portrayal of the remarkable Grandin.

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Anna North Jezebel Jul 29, 2020

Temple Grandin won't make audiences understand autism -- the condition is too complex to be fully captured in a two-hour TV movie, if it can be captured at all. But the film may help us understand her, to all of our benefit.

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Linda Stasi New York Post Jul 29, 2020

Don't miss it -- especially for Danes' career-defining performance. You'll be looking at the next Meryl Streep.

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David Hinckley New York Daily News Jul 29, 2020

Every child diagnosed as autistic isn't Temple Grandin. But in Danes' pitchperfect and unblinking presentation of her story lies the blueprint for how the world should see potential, rather than limitations.

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Matthew Gilbert Boston Globe Jul 29, 2020

Even when the predictably rousing moments come, you may not feel manipulated so much as fascinated. The movie keeps its cool, so that Claire Danes can keep her dignity.

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Brian Lowry Variety Jul 25, 2020

Most impressively, Danes gets past the tics of her character -- an autistic woman who "thinks in pictures" -- to create the sort of memorable portrait that frequently yields gilded ornaments as a lovely parting gift.

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Dorothy Rabinowitz Wall Street Journal Jul 25, 2020

So completely does [Claire Danes] capture her subject's hard-learned speech, the genderless stride, the flashes of terror and brilliance and, occasionally, radiant joy, that it's impossible to find a trace of the actor beneath

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Noel Murray AV Club Jul 25, 2020 A-

The conventional biopic beats all get hit here. But Danes' performance is far from conventional.

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