Editing Tom Jones (1963 film) (section)

===Critical reception===
''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine's review stated "The film is a way-out, walleyed, wonderful exercise in cinema. It is also a social satire written in blood with a broadaxe. It is bawdy as the British were bawdy when a wench had to wear five petticoats to barricade her virtue".<ref>{{cite magazine |date= 18 October 1963 |title= Cinema: John Bull in His Barnyard |url= http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873797,00.html |magazine= Time }}{{Subscription required}}</ref>

Rich Gold of ''Variety'' wrote "Though ''Tom Jones'' is a period piece and very different it has the same lustiness and boisterous content with which to project the star. It should breeze its way cheerfully through the box office figures. It has sex, [[Eastmancolor]], some prime performers and plenty of action. Tony Richardson has directed John Osborne's screenplay with verve, though, occasionally, he falls back on camera tricks and editing which are disconcerting".<ref>{{cite web |date= 21 December 1998 |author= Variety Staff |title= Tom Jones |url= https://variety.com/1998/film/reviews/tom-jones-5-1200456187/ |website= [[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] }}</ref>

On [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film has an approval rating of 81% based on retrospective reviews from 42 critics, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's consensus states: "A frantic, irreverent adaptation of the novel, bolstered by Albert Finney's courageous performance and arresting visuals."<ref>{{cite web |title= Tom Jones (1963) |url= https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tom_jones |website= [[Rotten Tomatoes]] |access-date= 2 July 2023 }}</ref> On [[Metacritic]], it has a score of 77 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".<ref>{{cite web |title= Tom Jones |url= https://www.metacritic.com/movie/tom-jones |publisher= [[Metacritic]] |access-date= 4 February 2020 }}</ref>