Metacritic reviews

In countless ways visible and invisible, Sirk's sly subversion skewed American popular culture, and helped launch a new age of irony.

The ultimate in lush melodrama, Written on the Wind is, along with Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk's finest directorial effort, and one of the most notable critiques of the American family ever made.

Boiling over with heated acting and schmaltzy scores, Douglas Sirk’s ’50s melodramas tap neatly into our collective trash psyche. Penetrate the surface, however, and they’re as serious and heartfelt as their director was.

The movie, one of Sirk's most popular, is impeccably designed and shot but also gaudy, garish, full of jukebox colors and feverish emotions. It's about the "broken" screen characters Sirk says he loves most--and it really gets to you. [14 Apr 2006, p.C6]

The acting is dynamite, the melodrama is compulsive, the photography, lighting, and design share a bold disregard for realism. It's not an old movie; it's a film for the future.

This oil-family story is way, way east of Eden. Were I asked to choose, Written on the Wind would blow in as my favorite Sirk film.

Tiptop scripting from the Robert Wilder novel, dramatically deft direction by Douglas Sirk and sock performances by the cast give the story development a follow-through.

Though glossy, Sirk's film is tightly structured, with a creative manipulation of light and reflection, and heavy with the symbolism of male destructiveness. Unflinching in its often ugly revelation of character and consequence, it's an intense and powerful film.

Basically, this is slick magazine stuff, pretty trashy, but so entertainingly and professionally done that you can't help having one hell of a good time. [20 Feb 1957, p.6]

The trouble with this romantic picture—among other minor things, including Mr. Stack's absurd performance and another even more so by Miss Malone—is that nothing really happens, the complications within the characters are never clear and the sloppy, self-pitying fellow at the center of the whole thing is a bore.