April
Metrograph Pictures | Release Date: April 25, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Seattle TimesChase HutchinsonMay 30, 2025
Telling the story of an obstetrician working in a rural town in the country of Georgia who also performs abortions outside work, it’s a quiet wail in the darkness of the night, hurtling along with all the force of a lightning bolt. Read full review
100
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeApr 24, 2025
We have a new cinematic poet in Kulumbegashvili, and she doesn’t care if the stanzas rhyme. Difficult. Abrasive. Worth persevering with. Read full review
100
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 6, 2024
April is loath to explain itself, inviting us instead to watch, listen and feel our way through it — a work marked, like the benevolent but unreachable woman at its center, by immense empathy and isolated, inconsolable despair. Read full review
91
The Film StageSavina PetkovaSep 7, 2024
Dea Kulumbegashvili has found a way to draw mystery from the literal instead of turning it into metaphor––April’s hypnotism is made possible because everything onscreen is what it looks like, but it is also something more. But never something else, as a metaphor or an allegory would suggest. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 6, 2024
In this remarkable and shudderingly unresolved film, blessings and despair tend to become one and the same, two limbs of a shared body that Nina’s patients aren’t allowed to control for themselves. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesTim GriersonMay 2, 2025
Not quite a thriller and not quite a horror movie, April is all the more haunting for never pinning down the roots of Nina’s retreat from life while dedicating herself to improving the lives of others. Read full review
90
The New YorkerJustin ChangMay 2, 2025
Kulumbegashvili’s gaze is by turns coolly diagnostic and furiously exploratory, a dichotomy that manifests itself in the compositional extremes of Khachaturan’s cinematography. Read full review
90
The Daily BeastNick SchagerFeb 3, 2025
An alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) harrowing and hallucinatory story of an OB-GYN who discovers that her every attempt at nurturing life leads only to more death. Read full review
90
Screen DailyWendy IdeSep 6, 2024
April is a formidable, defiantly esoteric work. It demands considerable investment from the audience, but does repay it. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleApr 28, 2025
A prize-winner at last fall’s Venice Film Festival, “April” could be accused of leaning too much into an austere, art-film obliqueness. But Kulumbegashvili’s absolute control over the camera and the intensity of her calling make her film a grimly spellbinding and unforgettable experience. Read full review
80
Little White LiesRafaela Sales RossApr 23, 2025
It is a disorienting, all-consuming sensorial experience and made all the much better to those willing to surrender to its mysteries. Read full review
80
TheWrapBen CrollSep 9, 2024
Don’t let the name fool you: April is a wintery affair. By far the most uncompromising vision to play at this year’s Venice Film Festival, director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s slow cinema horror show might also be the most audacious. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinSep 6, 2024
The surreal bolt-on doesn’t work all that well, but the limpid cinematography and more quotidian dramatic elements are impactful and striking enough to distinguish this as one of the stronger films to emerge this fall festival season. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 6, 2024
It is a deeply unsettling meditation on sexuality and transgression. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireApr 25, 2025
April is as exquisite as it is excruciating: a film that will linger with you long afterward, but you’ll probably never want to watch it again. Read full review
75
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerApr 17, 2025
Aside from these weaker moments, April is overall equal parts disturbing and enthralling, arresting and miserable; a gorgeous slow-burn pressure cooker that culminates in a quiet condemnation of the powers complicit in women’s suffering while offering no catharsis. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineMarshall ShafferSep 29, 2024
April’s frames seek to embody a dizzying span of human experience, even if Dea Kulumbegashvili occasionally strains to corral it. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 24, 2025
April is easy to admire, but Kulumbegashvili’s use of art-film conventions can be wearyingly familiar, especially when the leisurely pace turns to a crawl. Read full review
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