Dreams
Greenwich Entertainment | Release Date: February 27, 2026 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
10
Negative:
3

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiz BraunFeb 26, 2026
This is pared-down storytelling that leaves you to draw your own conclusions, but nobody’s dreams are coming true here. Filmmaker Franco seems to assume his viewers will be paying attention, so Dreams is a typically understated affair, just slightly chilly in its detachment and stripped down in action and in dialogue. Money talks, though. Read full review
91
The Film StageSavina PetkovaMar 4, 2026
The two powerhouse performances at the heart of Dreams manage to stand so tall that it seems a love story like theirs can overpower even the trademark brutality one has learned to expect in every Michel Franco film. Read full review
91
IndieWireRyan LattanzioFeb 24, 2026
The film’s quietly disturbing power lies in how Franco packages his U.S.-Mexico border metaphor — with rich philanthropist Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) and her young ballerina lover Fernando (Isaac Hernández, in a striking newcomer performance) standing in for each — into an addictive and destructive love story as sharply wrought as the movie’s grander political concerns. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 5, 2026
At times, the dramatic tension is so strong, “Dreams” could almost be a thriller. Read full review
80
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMar 5, 2026
A story which might seem the stuff of high melodrama is given a very different charge by Franco’s characteristic rigour – an uninflected cleanness and clarity in Yves Cape’s cinematography, and a minimum of narrative frills, driving the narrative towards a conclusion that is one of this director’s starkest yet. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMar 5, 2026
Franco allows nothing to distract from his actors, observing their characters’ behavior with a forensic detail both transfixing and disturbing. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 3, 2026
It is quite a vision: mordant, satirical, brutal. Read full review
80
Next Best PictureMatthew TurnerNov 11, 2025
This is a powerfully intense erotic drama that exposes its central character’s exploitation of both the wealth gap and the age gap to devastating effect. Here’s hoping Chastain’s collaboration with Franco continues because they are doing exceptional work together. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrFeb 25, 2026
It’s both captivating and bleak, with a series of sexual encounters that can only be described as feral — “Wuthering Heights” wishes it could have hit the ravenous peaks of Fernando and Jennifer together. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 24, 2026
It’s a sneaky little movie about what people are really like, and it’s impressive. Read full review
60
IONCINEMA.comNicholas BellMar 5, 2026
In the world of Franco, humankind always resorts to base brutality, and this is a hemorrhaging revenge film suggesting the cruelest crimes are those of the heart. Read full review
60
TheWrapBen CrollMar 5, 2026
Without much by way of variance, the film spins on and spins out, jumping from austere interiors in Mexico City to San Francisco and back again, putting forward a cogent political read that does little to flatter those looking for anything more. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyMar 3, 2026
The film has bite without a lot of nuance. Read full review
60
The IndependentGeoffrey MacnabMar 3, 2026
Franco provides a platform for his two leads, Jessica Chastain and Isaac Hernández, to give blisteringly intense performances. But the film would surely have benefitted from a little more nuance and delicacy. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisFeb 26, 2026
Dreams might feel distant and frosty, but it has a lot to say about inequality and the prerogatives of privilege. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerFeb 25, 2026
The abusive push-pull between America and Mexico, the conflict between the exotic fantasy of a Latin lover and its xenophobic underbelly, crashes into two people too ill-defined to function as anything more than symbols. Read full review
50
The PlaylistMarshall ShafferMar 3, 2026
Once the basic parameters of Franco’s thought experiment in Dreams are grasped, what’s left is an obvious parable about immigration with little to offer beyond spitefulness and a smugly superior sense of self-loathing. Read full review
40
The RevealScott TobiasMar 3, 2026
Aside from a lively stretch toward the end of the film where Jennifer and Fernando wrestle on equal footing, literally as well as figuratively, Dreams is blunt in its intentions and programmatic in its plotting. Read full review
40
Screen RantGregory NussenFeb 25, 2026
Despite a series of beautiful gowns worn by Chastain, the film doesn't offer much intrigue nor sociopolitical interest, instead reducing itself to the lowest common denominator by the time it reaches its exceedingly cruel ending. Read full review
40
ColliderEmma KielyJul 9, 2025
Dreams is probably the same old story for Michel Franco fans, but as a first-time viewer, I was in awe of how a film could go so wrong so quickly. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoFeb 27, 2026
Sadly, “Dreams” never figures out what it wants to say, and what it does convey is done with so little affect or pulse that it almost feels like an intentional choice to tell a “hot” story in as “cool” a way as possible. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshFeb 26, 2026
The circumstances of the story might be “timely,” but “Dreams” doesn’t help us understand the situation better, leaving us in the dark about what we’re supposed to take away from this story of sex, violence, money and the state. Anything it suggests we already know. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDiego SemereneFeb 19, 2025
The film exposes the incontestable American art of getting more with blunt obviousness. Read full review
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