Goya's Ghosts
Samuel Goldwyn Company, The | Release Date: July 20, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
13
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Ghosts is one of Forman's most ambitious and daring films; would that all of its ambitions were fulfilled. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Goya's Ghosts is like the sketchbook Goya might have made with a camera. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
An oddly structured tale about Francisco Goya and the Spain that he lived and worked in. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
There is so little emotionally or intellectually at stake in most popular entertainment that Goya's Ghosts, Milos Forman's challenging, compelling and wildly uneven film, shoots like a cannonball into the solar plexus. I can't remember when I've been so physically and mentally shattered. Read full review
70
VarietyJonathan Holland
Ambitious script is stranded between entertainment and intellectualism, leaving us with a magnificent folly, thoroughly watchable for its visuals but ultimately hollow. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Far from an embarrassment and a generally fine piece of work. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Though not nearly as perfect as Amadeus and The People vs. Larry Flynt (to cite two of Forman's previous semibiographical efforts), Goya's Ghosts uses the lives of artists and historical figures to show us the best and the worst of our human impulses. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Although the period feeling is convincing, Forman doesn't seem to know exactly what he wants to say about this intensely complex era - and that leaves his cast floundering. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldMarta Barber
Captures the essence of the period -- an intriguing, backward era in Spain -- but without the emotional impact that such a film requires. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Lavish production and wardrobe design, as well as beautiful cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe make Goya's Ghosts lovely to look at, but as a portrait of the artist, the movie is a letdown. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Below-the-line credits are terrific, which only increases an overwhelming sense of disappointment with the film's failed ambitions. Read full review
58
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The film is mostly forced and heavyhanded. Forman first thought of using Goya to tell a story about the Inquisition several decades ago. Yet this movie appears to be as much about American behavior post-Sept. 11 as it is about 18th-century Spain or the Communist Czechoslovakia of Forman's youth. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The movie is uneven in the extreme, to the extent that it feels like two imperfectly wed pictures. The first, while not extraordinary, at least contains some interesting ideas. The second borders on embarrassing: an overblown melodrama complete with coincidence building upon coincidence and plot threads that are left unresolved. Read full review
50
Village VoiceCharles Petersen
The film takes as many plot-twists as "Pirates of the Caribbean"; distinctly Goya in its emphasis on the grotesque, it shows none of the Spaniard's artistic economy. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
The whole thing is handsomely mounted, with plenty of Goya paintings and supposed observations about the ironies of history and the cyclical nature of life, etc. Forman's always been a huckster, but I never thought I'd see him waste this many good actors on a movie this bad. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Handsome but stilted. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
The biggest tragedy about Milos Forman's foray into the life and times of Spanish artist Francisco De Goya is the waste of so much great raw material. Read full review
50
The New York TimesMatt Zoller Seitz
An unwieldy mix of political satire and lavish period soap opera. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The film's seriousness of intent is unimpeachable – Forman and Carriere see disturbing echoes of the modern world in 18th-century Spain -- but the execution borders on farce. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Whatever the faults of Goya's Ghosts -- and there are several -- you've got to hand it to director Milos Forman: It takes real chutzpah to cast Randy Quaid as the king of Spain. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Though much blood is shed, the film is bloodless. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubTasha Robinson
If Forman is trying to communicate that art isn't an effective way to change American society, he's proved his point neatly with this muddled, wandering dud. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
An overstuffed turkey that's entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
In a season of digital bombast, it can be a relief to walk into a stodgy life-of-the-great-man costume drama. Goya's Ghosts, before it turns into a messy, horse-drawn load, achieves a civilized stuffiness that gives off its own mild pleasure. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
The Spanish Inquisition was better summed up in an eight-minute musical number by Mel Brooks than in the entirety of Goya's Ghosts, an across-the-board disaster from one of my favorite directors, Milos Forman. Read full review
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