Metacritic reviews

A pitch dark noir whose eponymous anti-heroine (Joan Crawford) is surely one of the most compellingly flawed women of the genre.

Impeccable, bleak gloss, with the supreme Crawford engineering the greatest comeback of them all. Mildred Pierce is one of the finest noir soap operas ever, with the queen of pathos shouldering the storm alone; her efforts snagged the golden statuette as 1945's Best Actress.

A masterful weepie adapted from a James M. Cain novel.

Wow! It may not be art or good taste, but throbbing melodrama doesn't come with more conviction. Even to those usually turned off by the tough Crawford, Mildred is compelling.

Adapted from a melodramatic novel by James M Cain, it is a magnificent blend of film noir and feminine soap, glossily crafted by Michael Curtiz whose versatile achievements included Casablanca and Yankee Doodle Dandy.

James Cain's novel of the treacherous life in Southern California that sets house-wife-turned waitress-turned-successful restauranteur (Crawford) against her own daughter (Blyth) in competition for the love of playboy Zachary Scott, is brought fastidiously and bleakly to life by Curtiz' direction, Ernest Haller's camerawork, and Anton Grot's magnificent sets.

At first reading James M. Cain's novel of the same title might not suggest screenable material, but the cleanup job has resulted in a class feature, showmanly produced by Jerry Wald and tellingly directed by Michael Curtiz.

The archetypal Joan Crawford movie.

Though its craft is accomplished, the film never gets deep under one’s skin the way it ought to.

Mildred Pierce lacks the driving force of stimulating drama, and its denouement hardly comes as a surprise, but it is cut from a pattern that has been hugely successful in the past and it probably will be this time too.