Ida
Music Box Films | Release Date: May 2, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
91
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 9, 2015
Ida is an art film in the finest sense of the term — it is austere technique counterbalanced by emotions that bleed. Read full review
100
The New YorkerDavid DenbyDec 16, 2014
This compact masterpiece has the curt definition and the finality of a reckoning—a reckoning in which anger and mourning blend together. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 30, 2014
A road trip at once tragic, hopeful, and unforgettable. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoMay 26, 2014
Ida is a rarity, a film both intensely grounded in painful historical reality and genuinely otherworldly. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesBill StametsMay 22, 2014
Ida reaches spiritual depth through affecting performances rendered in sublime black-and-white compositions. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 22, 2014
One of the year's gems. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kiva ReardonMay 11, 2014
Favouring long takes over didactic scripting, Pawlikowski lets his powerful imagery carry the film. Read full review
100
IndieWireGreg CwickMay 11, 2014
Pawlikowski doesn't punish his viewers, he simply challenges them. Take the vow to dedicate your attention to Ida and you’ll be rewarded deeply. Read full review
100
SlateDana StevensMay 2, 2014
There’s an urgency to Ida’s simple, elemental story that makes it seem timely, or maybe just timeless. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireMay 2, 2014
Riveting, original and breathtakingly accomplished on every level, Ida would be a masterpiece in any era, in any country. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMay 1, 2014
Spare, haunting, uncompromising, Ida is a film of exceptional artistry whose emotions are as potent and persuasive as its images are indelibly beautiful. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMay 1, 2014
There is an implicit argument here between faith and materialism, one that is resolved with wit, conviction and generosity of spirit. Mr. Pawlikowski has made one of the finest European films (and one of most insightful films about Europe, past and present) in recent memory. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 1, 2014
Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, a compact masterpiece set in Poland in the early 1960s, gets to the heart of its matter with startling swiftness. Read full review
100
Village VoiceAaron CutlerApr 29, 2014
Ida unfolds partly as chamber play and partly as road movie, following the two women on a search for their dead beloveds' anonymous graves. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyApr 29, 2014
Frame by frame, Ida looks resplendently bleak, its stunning monochromes combining with the inevitable gloomy Polish weather and communist-era deprivations to create a harsh, unforgiving environment. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 2, 2014
What comes through so powerfully in this movie is a portrait of an entire generation making its way from death throes to new beginnings. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 22, 2014
Spare, haunting and in its own way beautiful, Ida is an absorbing film about discovering the truth, and the attendant price we pay to learn it. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirMay 1, 2014
What makes Ida remarkable is how much Pawlikowski is able to accomplish in just 80 minutes, with a pair of mismatched female characters, a handful of wintry and desolate locations, the square-format cinematography of Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal, and a soundtrack that combines modernism, Soviet-bloc pop music and a haunting performance of John Coltrane’s “Naima” that seems to capture all the emotional possibilities the characters cannot express. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJun 11, 2014
There’s a definite austerity to the storytelling, which is enhanced by the crisp black-and-white cinematography by Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 5, 2014
The first three-quarters of Ida are as astonishing as anything you’ll see at the movies this year. Read full review
88
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeMay 1, 2014
Both actresses are extraordinary, but Kulesza — bitter, sarcastic and tragic — carries the movie’s soul. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 1, 2014
Over an efficient 80 minutes, no shot feels wasted, and no one says much that couldn’t be better communicated through their placement in the artfully arranged frame. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJessica KiangApr 29, 2014
If it does suffer slightly from an overall lack of urgency that will mean those looking for a more directly emotive experience may find it hard to engage with, the more patient viewer has rewards in store that are rich and rare indeed. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanApr 3, 2014
Just as austere and demanding as you'd expect a black-and-white film about a Polish nun to be. Don't let that scare you, though. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonSep 23, 2014
Pawlikowski’s film may be bleak and unforgiving, but it’s also richly sympathetic and deeply moving. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid HughesSep 22, 2014
Pawlikowski has a photographer’s eye for composition, and every crisp, monochrome frame could be a postcard from Poland’s tragic, turbulent past. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottAug 29, 2014
Agata Kulesza is pitch-perfect as the tortured aunt, weighed down by years of shame and sorrow. In a quieter but equally impactful role is newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska as Ida, a character defined by a quiet, rigid stoicism but who, with her cherubic face, engenders great empathy. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMay 5, 2014
The movie’s chill is hard to shake off. It’s a grimly potent portrait of repression, of what happens to a society that buries its past in an unmarked grave — and lives its present in a state of corrosive denial. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMay 1, 2014
Ida is photographed in gorgeous black-and-white cinematography. A deep focus allows every corner of the simple, serene compositions to be seen clearly. The economy of story and dialogue extends to the running time — at barely 90 minutes, the movie feels full, yet free of excess. Read full review
80
The DissolveScott TobiasMay 1, 2014
Ida’s piercing intimacy makes the deepest impression, but its vision is deceptively wide-reaching despite a scale that’s deliberately pared-down and small. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 3, 2014
Every moment of Ida feels intensely personal. It is a small gem, tender and bleak, funny and sad, superbly photographed in luminous monochrome: a sort of neo-new wave movie with something of the classic Polish film school and something of Truffaut, but also deadpan flecks of Béla Tarr and Aki Kaurismäki. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 22, 2014
Each and every detail accrues to create a vivid, unforgettable portrait, and all are absorbed and reflected by Anna, portrayed by Trzebuchowska with the transparency and wonder of a woman for whom not just history but secular life itself is almost totally abstract. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMay 1, 2014
With her brassy, determined aunt, Ida sets off to find answers and discovers life beyond the convent walls in this leisurely but satisfying journey. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChris CabinApr 29, 2014
Pawel Pawlikowski shows great empathy toward the idea of illusions as a way of attaining emotional stability in even the most brutal terrain. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeApr 29, 2014
It’s one thing to set up a striking black-and-white composition and quite another to draw people into it, and dialing things back as much as this film does risks losing the vast majority of viewers along the way, offering an intellectual exercise in lieu of an emotional experience to all but the most rarefied cineastes. Read full review
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