Calvary
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: August 1, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 8, 2014
Calvary is also just jaw-droppingly beautiful. McDonagh and cinematographer Larry Smith capture the four-seasons-in-one-day miracle that is Ireland, with its jagged stonescapes, roiling surf, fairie towns, and bracing skies. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 7, 2014
One of the smartest and most impassioned films about Christianity in recent memory, though to say that might give the wrong impression. In tone and strategy, the film is low-key and subtle; and the story can be appreciated both for its surface qualities and its deeper intentions. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenJul 31, 2014
The film is then not so much a meditation but a reverie, a swirl of emotions and ideas, managing to be both calmly reflective and skittishly anxious at the same time. Calvary is a serious comedy, a funny drama, a ruminative film about life and a lively film about death. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJul 31, 2014
Visually, intellectually and emotionally, McDonagh’s film is one to savor. Read full review
100
New York PostKyle SmithJul 30, 2014
Twice I have left a Calvary screening feeling dazed and moved. Read full review
100
Total FilmAndrew LowryMay 16, 2014
Anchored by a truly sensational performance from Gleeson, this unexpected blend of passion play, detective story, rural comedy and serious inquiry into faith is destined for classic status. Read full review
100
EmpireKim NewmanApr 7, 2014
On the strength of only two films, McDonagh and Gleeson are a director/star team on a par with Ford/Wayne, Fellini/Mastroianni or Scorsese/De Niro. Calvary is gripping, moving, funny and troubling, down to an uncompromising yet uncynical finish. Read full review
100
VarietyJustin ChangJan 24, 2014
Grounded by a performance of monumental soul from Gleeson as a tough-minded Irish priest marked for death by one of his parishioners, the film offers a mordantly funny survey of small-town iniquity that morphs, almost imperceptibly, into a deeply felt lament for a fallen world. Read full review
91
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezJan 24, 2014
Calvary may not be for all audiences, with its pitch-black heart and sober existentialism not exactly commercial stuff, but its unwavering commitment to the intelligent thorniness of its themes, and the masterful control McDonagh exerts over the shifts in tone are worth cherishing, bringing it soaring close to something divine. Read full review
90
NPRBob MondelloAug 1, 2014
Calvary is bleak and corrosively funny in about equal measure, with the rugged grey/green landscape suiting the harshness of the village's attitudes about the Church, and repentance, and the worth of good works. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirJul 31, 2014
McDonagh walks a hazardous tightrope from scene to scene, from amiable comedy to black-hearted farce to heartbreaking tragedy, often trying to strike all those notes within seconds. It doesn’t all work equally well, but the cumulative effect is powerful. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonJul 29, 2014
Gleeson is one of the finest actors we have, and in casting him as the lead, McDonagh stacks the deck so that regardless of our own religious reservations, we're forced to care about Father James as a man. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyAug 1, 2014
This is the kind of movie that galvanizes and discomfits while it’s on screen, and is terrific fodder for conversation long after its credits roll. Even if you are neither Catholic nor Irish, this Calvary will in no way be a useless sacrifice of your moviegoing time. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigJul 31, 2014
Calvary is also profoundly compelling for the light it shines on how public attitudes have changed toward the clergy in the wake of the abusive-priests scandal. Read full review
88
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJul 29, 2014
Calvary is a compact and biting tale of a righteous man being tested by his faith, his peers and his predicament. Read full review
83
IndieWireKatherine KilkennyJan 24, 2014
Even as it delivers an emotional wallop, not every moment of "Calvary" goes down smoothly, as comedic scenes transition somewhat abruptly to tragic moments and the final reveal never reaches the heights of its Hitchockian inspirations. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 7, 2014
The movie belongs to Gleeson, commanding in every scene, even when he's sitting silently, listening to another sinner go on about what's wrong with everyone else. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 31, 2014
It's a film of modest means and great ambition, a darkly comic drama concerned with nothing less than the place of faith, and an embattled Church, in modern life. Read full review
80
The DissolveTasha RobinsonJul 30, 2014
While it’s less playful and less giddily, enjoyably excessive than The Guard, it explores similar ground, as a good-hearted man largely abandoned by his community attempts to do the right thing as he sees it. But it brings in much more complicated matters of religion and morality, asking what it means to be a man of faith in an age of doubt. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeApr 9, 2014
[A] wickedly funny black comedy, all fatalism and gallows humour, with both a beating heart and an inquiring mind lingering beneath its tough-guy bluster. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksJan 24, 2014
Calvary boasts a sharp sense of place and a deep love of language. It's puckish and playful, mercurial and clever, rattling with gallows laughter as it paints a portrait of an Irish community that is at once intimate and alienated. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiAug 13, 2014
With Calvary, John Michael McDonagh (who wrote and directed "The Guard" and is the brother of Martin “In Bruges” McDonagh) has crafted a darkly hilarious and deeply ruminative update on the passion play. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsAug 14, 2014
Gleeson is great as the troubled, conscientious priest, but until an abruptly shocking finale, his fatalism turns the ticking clock into a congested hourglass. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie OgleAug 14, 2014
Filmed around stunning County Sligo on Ireland’s west coast, Calvary is a thoughtful, atmospheric movie despite the awkward parade of suspects and the fact that everyone seems a little too conveniently hostile. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyAug 8, 2014
Calvary is an unsettling concoction, abstract and brutal, morally serious and too ghastly in its flippancy to be simply comedy. When you stop gasping at the shocks and jokes, there’s a profundity here, in the struggle to find the balance between outrage and forgiveness. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 7, 2014
Gleeson carries the film with wonderful, natural authority. He's a little better than the movie itself, which is glib to a fault. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jul 31, 2014
Some of Calvary is uncomfortably bleak... But writer-director John Michael McDonagh—brother of the English playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)—has an ear for wry humor, providing his characters with a steady supply of acerbic wit. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedJul 30, 2014
Downbeat, depressing and heavy as lead, Calvary is nevertheless an unusual film that never bores. Impeccable performances by Chris O’Dowd, Aiden Gillen, M. Emmett Walsh and Kelly Reilly are riveting. And Mr. Gleeson is a bear-like centerpiece of conflicts and contradictions who anchors the floating pieces of the Irish puzzle in faith and doctrine, while mercifully refusing to sermonize. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensAug 2, 2014
Calvary gives Gleeson ample opportunity to explore his talent for anchoring a movie, making it deeper and richer than the script and direction might otherwise allow. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 1, 2014
The tension of Calvary is fitful at best, and much of the movie trips into silliness, but in Brendan Gleeson -- in his proud bearing and his lamenting gaze -- we see the plight of the lonely believer in a world beyond belief. [4 Aug.2014, p.74]
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 31, 2014
The limitations of Calvary are summed up by the insistent, dialectical chatter that almost mechanically pings and pongs between lightness and darkness, glibness and seriousness, insincerity and honesty, faithfulness and despair. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 1, 2014
Gleeson is a wonderful actor and he keeps a lid on the blarney. He manages to convey a lot – fear, anger, compassion, rue – with only the slightest of squints and frowns. But he’s still the center of a cooked-up cavalcade of souls. Read full review
65
Film.comEric D. SniderMay 16, 2014
The film has much more talking than acting, so McDonagh is wise to give it all the zest he can muster... But McDonagh, for all his agility as a writer, stumbles in fleshing out the story. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoAug 7, 2014
Taking its title from the site where Christ was crucified, the controversy-courting film has a lot of Catholic church business (and doctrine) on its mind, and veers from poetically eloquent to jarringly blunt in hashing it all out. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottAug 15, 2014
Calvary is most assuredly not a comedy. It is a weighty, powerful drama -- albeit one with comic moments -- that dabbles in weighty, powerful themes. Read full review
60
CineVuePatrick GambleMay 16, 2014
By interchanging bawdy gaiety and a ponderous attitude to emphasise the film's spiritual message, Calvary feels extremely disjointed, struggling to balance its dualistic tone on top of its oversized ensemble cast. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 16, 2014
For all the film’s merits, the suspicion persists that McDonagh’s a little too pleased with his own fulminating thesis. Time and again the writing is showing off for effect, delivering a fire-and-brimstone sermon with cocky swagger. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 20, 2014
Calvary becomes a lurid Agatha Christie yarn with something important to say about the church and Ireland that McDonagh can't fully articulate. Pulp keeps getting in the way. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 7, 2014
As pungent as McDonagh’s writing is, it may be his too-easy pessimism that makes Calvary engrossing and thought-provoking, but not great. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJaime N. ChristleyJul 29, 2014
One may feel dissatisfied by the 11th-hour turn toward lyrical fatalism, and mildly insulted by the presumptuous attitude it seems to choose as it sends us on our way. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 2, 2014
Calvary is like a philosophical Agatha Christie mystery. That’s certainly not the worst thing to be. But it’s also the film’s undoing, because the reliance on specific genre cliches undermines the movie’s more serious intentions. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 1, 2014
Those shots are in contrast to those landscapes, which are craggy, primordial. It’s meant to be a haunting combination, and I have colleagues who’ve found it just that, who came out of the movie ashen, devastated. But I found it bludgeoning — I think it gives new meaning to the phrase hammer of God. Read full review
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