It has some visual notes that are complemented by a strong performance by Marlon Brando, but his essay on passion and the dilemmas of couple relationships often remain imprisoned in the walls of superficiality. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 4, 2024

Director Bernardo Bertolucci's landmark and controversial erotic film - an arthouse film, told about the development of a destructive relationship, as it followed a distraught, confused, grieving widower and middle-aged American exile named Paul

Full Review | Nov 9, 2023

Marlon Brando, at the height of his fame and his talent, delivers a raw, emotionally naked performance as the 45-year-old American widower ...

Full Review | Sep 22, 2023

I’m not sure any actor has flown closer to the sun than Brando did here.

Full Review | Jun 18, 2023

If the script, if the whole film declines to involve us, we are thrown back not on interest in human beings but on the inquisitiveness about sexual practices. And again I find myself asking what the fuss is about.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2022

Some of the improvisational small talk ends up being lightly amusing, but nothing about this picture can overcome the potency of the sex scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Aug 30, 2020

[Brando provides] two sequences of such power, of such piercing emotional intensity and perception, that he brings an aura of greatness to the entire film. It is, alas, only an aura, for the film is all machismo.

Full Review | Jun 12, 2020

Everything in the movie is presented somewhat vaguely, which grants it a certain interest that we could call fascination, if weren't about something more evident, fundamental, honest, and spontaneous. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 26, 2019

In this age where the human behavior system is rarely an important facet in film narratives, here is a picture that still throbs with all the pain and misery of its deep emotional wounds.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 15, 2019

What makes it work is it is grounded in real life. It's a story and a character study with a strong philosophical framework and people that are recognisably human. Factor in superb filmmaking, saturated sensual natural light and cinematography.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

Regardless of all its solos, failed majesties, and off-the-mark horrors, even as a highly imperfect adventure, it is still the best adventure in film to be seen in this pullulating year.

Full Review | Mar 22, 2018

When Brando improvises within Bertolucci's structure, his full art is realized; his performance is intuitive, rapt, princely. Working with Brando, Bertolucci achieves realism with the terror of actual experience still alive on the screen.

Full Review | Jan 3, 2018

A film that loses all interest and is even quite unbearable when Brando is not on screen. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Dec 23, 2016

The sex scenes that made the film famous are just a symptom of a deep pain and also its treatment. [Full review in Portuguese.]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 22, 2016

Brando gives a terrific performance, but Bertolucci's movie as a whole, which was so bold and audacious in 1972, does not hold up very well.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 25, 2012

Took the world by storm with its strategy of sexual frankness and a towering performance by Marlon Brando. [Blu-ray]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 30, 2011

This emotional, sexual jumble of a movie still contains some interesting ideas, and some gorgeous cinematic poetry.

Full Review | Mar 25, 2011

High Art moments are offset by the grossly misogynistic behavior of Brando's character and scenes and dialogue that can seem so insipid that they negate any real eroticism or serious shock value.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 26, 2011

But when we look at this film, it signals a feeble turn towards art house eroticism which is tame by today's standards. For as Maria Schneider herself says ', we've seen much worse'.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 5, 2011

Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 masterpiece of post-modern existential angst is an irrefutable art film that attempts to reconcile a depth of social existence through its sexually liberated characters.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Sep 15, 2010