The Miracle Worker
Reception

The Miracle Worker (1962)

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External reception

8.1
5 platform(s) · 7 ratings 25,252 votes
8.4/10 3,601 votes Synced 2026-07-21
8.1/10 21,277 votes Synced 2026-08-20
Audience 8.0/10 20 votes Synced 2026-07-19
Critics 8.3/10 Synced 2026-07-19
Audience 8.8/10 Synced 2026-07-17
Critics 9.6/10 Synced 2026-07-17
7.9/10 354 votes Synced 2026-09-12

External reviews

Staff (Not Credited) · TV Guide Magazine 100.00/100.00

The film is a harrowing, painfully honest, sometimes violent journey, astonishingly acted and rendered.

synced 2026-07-19
Staff (Not Credited) · Time Out 90.00/100.00

It's a stunningly impressive piece of work, typically (for Penn) deriving much of its power from the performances.

synced 2026-07-19
Michael Wilmington · Chicago Tribune 88.00/100.00

Anne Bancroft won the Oscar playing Helen Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, in this intelligent adaptation of William Gibson's Broadway hit, and it's a fierce, moving job, highlighted by the incredibly savage battles between teacher Annie and pupil Helen (fellow Oscar winner Patty Duke). It's a model serious bio-drama.

synced 2026-07-19
Staff (Not Credited) · Variety 80.00/100.00

Where the picture really excels, outside of its inherent story values, is in the realm of photographic technique. It is here that director Penn and cameraman Ernest Caparros have teamed to create artful, indelible strokes of visual storytelling and mood-molding.

synced 2026-07-19
Bosley Crowther · The New York Times 70.00/100.00

The absolutely tremendous and unforgettable display of physically powerful acting that Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke put on in William Gibson's stage play The Miracle Worker is repeated by them in the film made from it by the same producer, Fred Coe, and the same director, Arthur Penn.

synced 2026-07-19
Nick Pinkerton · Village Voice 80.00/100.00

A film that storms where most biopics respectfully tiptoe.

synced 2026-07-19

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