Metacritic reviews

A gigantic achievement, an endowment of riches.

This movie moves so confidently and looks so good it seems incredible that it's a directorial debut.

Costner's directing style is fresh and assured. A sense of surprise and humor accompany Dunbar's adventures at every turn, twisting the narrative gently this way and that and making the journey a real pleasure.

Costner (with Michael Blake's screenplay) creates a vision so childlike, so willfully romantic, it's hard to put up a fight.

A three-hour delight… The movie generates much of its power by being so life-affirming at a time when people feel nervous about the future. [9 Nov 1990, Friday, p.C]

The film's politically correct repudiation of the familiar black-and-white characterizations of the white and red man is ultimately undermined, however, when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction.

The picture moves slowly but never sluggishly, and it never grinds down. The measured pace shows real assurance on the part of Costner. [9 Nov 1990, Daily Datebook, p.E1]

It would be nice, for instance, to meet some white man, other than Dunbar [Costner], who is not a brutish lout. And it would not harm the film if there were one or two bad-natured Sioux visible in it. [12 Nov 1990, p.102]

Smoothly directed by Kevin Costner, who also gives a sensitive performance in the leading role. The screenplay is often trite, however, and there's no reason for the picture's three-hour length. [9 Nov 1990, Arts, p.12]

The movie is so busy turning the Sioux characters into photogenic saints that it never quite allows them the complications of human beings.