Metacritic reviews

This is a wonderful film. There isn't a thing that I would change.

Terms of Endearment is the rare commercial picture that sets audiences to laughing hysterically and crying unashamedly, sometimes within consecutive seconds, and then shoos them out of the theatre in contented emotional exhaustion. [23 Nov 1983]

No film since Preston Sturges was a pup has so shrewdly appreciated the way the eccentric plays hide-and-seek with the respectable in the ordinary American landscape; no comedy since Annie Hall or Manhattan has so intelligently observed not just the way people live now but what's going on in the back of their minds; and finally, and in full knowledge that one may be doing the marketing department's job for them, it is the best movie of the year.

It rates a resounding yes because it doesn't insult our emotional intelligence. [23 Nov 1983]

Lopsided comedy turned tearjerker, saved by excellent performances.

James L. Brooks's clever and witty cry-a-long which has as many guys pretending not to cry, as women unashamedly sobbing.

Terms of Endearment is a funny, touching, beautifully acted film that covers more territory than it can easily manage.

Teaming of Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson at their best makes Terms of Endearment an enormously enjoyable offering for Christmas, adding bite and sparkle when sentiment and seamlessness threatens to sink other parts of the picture.

There's not enough substance to support the sentiment of this longish comedy-drama.

The dual-track plot, with constant cutting between mother and daughter, seems less an attempt to establish meaningful parallels between the two stories than the nervous twitches of a compulsive channel changer.