 My only real objection to the film, I think, is a certain impatience with the screenplay, which lumberingly sets up almost a very physical and emotional crisis that can (and, indeed) must erupt before this kind of movie can be said to have decently met 

Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" rated the film three out of four stars and described Newman as "a director of sympathy and a sort of lyrical restraint.He rarely pushes scenes to their obvious conclusions, he avoids melodrama, and by the end of "Sometimes a Great Notion", we somehow come to know the Stamper family better than we 

Quentin Tarantino called it "a good somewhat compromised movie, that is justly famous for one of the greatest scenes in early seventies cinema...This isn’t an attempt to turn a great novel into a equally great film.