Metacritic reviews

Curtiz was a master of all genres but The Sea Wolf is his best. Darkly flirting with the noir genre that would capture the decade, there's so much tension and hostility, secrets and lies that permeate the ship. Ida Lupino has never been more beautiful as the criminal attempting to rewrite her past.

The Sea Wolf is a triumph of studio filmmaking. [22 Oct 2017, p.11]

Given Robert Rossen's strikingly literate script, Sol Polito's wonderfully eerie camerawork, and Robinson's terrific performance - all pulling together to elaborate the Luciferian motto borrowed from Milton by which the captain lives, 'Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven' - this is one of Curtiz's best movies.

THE SEA WOLF contains little of the prolixity of Jack London's philosophically oriented novel, yet it is true to the spirit of the book. The megalomania of the ship's master is wonderfully expressed in Edward G. Robinson's fine portrayal of the contemptuous captain.

The best of several film versions of Jack London's story about a Nazi-like sea captain (Edward G. Robinson in top form), this Warner Bros. production co-stars Ida Lupino and John Garfield and was directed by Michael Curtiz, shortly before he made "Casablanca." [26 Dec 1991, p.E1]

Robinson provides plenty of vigor and two-fisted energy to the actor-proof role of Larsen, and at times is over-directed.

At least a good half of the effect in a sea-picture comes from the sea, and when that element is lacking the whole thing seems flat and synthetic. This, we regret to say, is a major fault in The Sea Wolf.