Metacritic reviews

For one star to get an award, a handful of defeated nominees have to swallow their pain, as the spotlight moves away from them. For one star to deliver the shock of the new, another one has to receive the shock of the old. A Star Is Born turns that transaction into a love story.

The story of A Star Is Born may be as old as show-business, but it is also electrifyingly fresh – a well-known melody given vivid, searching new force.

Cooper has made a jaggedly tender love story that is never over-the-top, an operatic movie that dares to be quiet.

Cooper and Lady Gaga are dynamite together; this is a story that lives and dies by the central relationship and the instant chemistry that must blossom between them, and these two have it in spades.

It’s wonderful to see a first-time filmmaker who’s more interested in effective storytelling than in impressing us; telling a story effectively is hard enough. Best of all, Cooper has succeeded in making a terrific melodrama for the modern age.

Credit for A Star is Born‘s heartwarming aura is owed less to Cooper’s own directing (assured and judicious a debut as it may be) than to the freshness and credibility brought by his fellow superstar. Believe the pre-premiere hype: Lady Gaga is nothing short of extraordinary.

The star that is truly born here is Cooper as a director.

The first-time director's grasp of pacing could be improved and the overlong movie can't quite sustain the energy and charm of its sensational start. But this is a durable tale of romance, heady fame and crushing tragedy, retold for a new generation with heart and grit.

Credit to Cooper for delivering his best, most soulful performance while pulling double duty behind the camera, but it’s his co-star whose magnetism most draws you into their world — and keeps you there even when the film hits the occasional wrong note.

Taken on its own terms as an unashamedly anachronistic attempt to muster the emotional intensity of the Hollywood melodrama tradition, Cooper’s film must be at least grudgingly acknowledged as a success.