Irreversible

Name: Irreversible
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Released: March 7, 2003
Duration: 97 min
Rating: 51
Cast: Albert Dupontel, Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel

2003

METASCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 194 Ratings

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7.4

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7.4	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 194 Ratings

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Irreversible

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Movie Details & Credits

Lions Gate Films | Release Date: March 7, 2003 | Not Rated

Starring: Albert Dupontel, Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel

Summary: A dark revenge drama about a woman who is brutally raped and the retribution her boyfriend exacts.

Director: Gaspar Noé

Genre(s): Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Crime

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 97 min

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Critic Reviews

Owen Gleiberman

After a while, a didactic overdeliberateness seeps into Noé's design, but there's no doubt that he's a new kind of dark film wizard: a poet of apocalyptic shock. Read full review

Lisa Nesselson

A demanding but rewarding emotional odyssey in a challenging visual package. Read full review

Rick Groen

An integrated work whose form clearly mirrors its content. Often, looking into that mirror is dreadful; but, often enough, it's also dreadfully revealing. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

What's wrong is the decision to let all the actors improvise their lines...At the end, Irreversible looks less like captured or even distorted life than an acting class. Read full review

Anthony Lane

Even if you closed your eyes -- a tempting option -- you would still know that you were in the hollering presence of pain. The story is undiluted dread. [10 March 2003, p. 94]

Manohla Dargis

Noé;, with his Nietzsche-for-knuckleheads nihilism and extreme-cinema ambitions, clearly fancies himself a visionary, but mounting a camera on a roller coaster or putting a story into rewind doesn't make a film formally adventurous or interesting. Conceiving of a gay club as an antechamber to the inferno and sexualizing a woman's rape, however, do make it titillating. Read full review

Lou Lumenick

Truthfully, it's all incredibly boring. Noé tosses in some dime-store existentialism ("Time destroys everything"), but this is a movie with not a whole lot on its mind except rank exploitation. Read full review

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User Reviews

migaspinto

Aug 5, 2015

This masterpiece isn't no also my top favourite films. It's a work of art. Because of the dirtiness is also beauty. And because the last scene of the film is the greatest ever made. And because Gaspar Noe is a genius. This film isn't only brutallity, it's also originallity, beauty, it's aThis masterpiece isn't no also my top favourite films. It's a work of art. Because of the dirtiness is also beauty. And because the last scene of the film is the greatest ever made. And because Gaspar Noe is a genius. This film isn't only brutallity, it's also originallity, beauty, it's a reflection, and a conclusion that we cannot escape the time. Because: Le Temps Detruit Tout.… Expand

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

eugenesummerz

Jul 22, 2020

10 out of 10, would fap again
10 out of 10, would fap again
10 out of 10, would fap again

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

GilbertMulroneycakesOnTheSouthBankShow

Oct 27, 2003

Sorry to barge in again - and the Meta editors can feel free not to publish it [Ed: wouldn't dream of it, Gilbert...Keep bargin' in whenever you need to!] - but I really must react to the words of "Sharmoot". One word in particular. Pretentious. I hate it. I want it killed. Sorry to barge in again - and the Meta editors can feel free not to publish it [Ed: wouldn't dream of it, Gilbert...Keep bargin' in whenever you need to!] - but I really must react to the words of "Sharmoot". One word in particular. Pretentious. I hate it. I want it killed. It's a word that the ignorant use to shield themselves against people who use words of more than one syllable (though I hasten to add that I don't wish to imply that Sharmoot is one of these people, qua idea, just that they've used a word that makes them look like they might be). Sorry, Sharmoot, but how you can talk about Irreversible without discussing art and structure is beyond me - this isn't a Martin Lawrence film, this is a proper piece of cinematic art (and as such, I'm surprised not to see Yoon Min C.'s name anywhere yet...). To review it with just three sentences would be like saying "Yeah, it's not bad, I quite like it" about the Last Supper, or Picasso's Guernica. It's a piece of art, and I reviewed it as such, and I don't appreciate being called "pretentious" just because of it. Especially not - with respect - by someone who says, in all apparent seriousness, that it would be better if it wasn't French. You may not have written a thesis on it, but you could - and probably should - have done. And Toby B would probably agree. Oh, and by the way, if you enjoyed it, there's something wrong with you, because it's horrible. There. Just needed that said.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

MrPajamas

Dec 11, 2022

Interestingly filmed. The camera was shaking almost all the time and at the beginning I slowly couldn't figure out what was going on, but it had its charm and gradually it started to make more sense. Story-wise, I don't think it's anything special. What pulls it off for me is the way it'sInterestingly filmed. The camera was shaking almost all the time and at the beginning I slowly couldn't figure out what was going on, but it had its charm and gradually it started to make more sense. Story-wise, I don't think it's anything special. What pulls it off for me is the way it's filmed. For me, an average film that I wouldn't recommend to I don't know who. For fans of smut I think it was nothing special and you can find better smut movies and for the normal viewer I think it's not much of a movie.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Polybius

Oct 8, 2010

It fails to provide any moral massage. It tries hard to create a "revenge flick", but only offends and shocks the viewer. It proves that any movie can become a cult classic; they just need to be shocking, have a shaky camerawork, and be french.

6 of 12 users found this helpful66

TylerC.

Apr 12, 2006

This is just simply a horrible french remake of Momento, which came out a year before this stupid film did, and was a hundred times better than this was.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

annbd

Sep 6, 2018

This pathetic piece of **** terrible at every point,that almost made me vomit, has 8.0 user score. MOVIE FOR PSYCHOPATHS. I can't even imagine how crazy and mentally ill a person has to be, to like this horrible 180 minutes teen-trying-to-make-movie video, not even deserving movieThis pathetic piece of **** terrible at every point,that almost made me vomit, has 8.0 user score. MOVIE FOR PSYCHOPATHS. I can't even imagine how crazy and mentally ill a person has to be, to like this horrible 180 minutes teen-trying-to-make-movie video, not even deserving movie description. This movie don't have anything, ANYTHING, witch I can hang on and say good things. I have never seen something so bad in the film industry, something so disturbing and bad made, without any taste. And also haven't seen so nasty cinematography. At least to have a nice idea and a little "build" of this idea. "Time can take away everything" - yeah, say one philosophical quote in a movie, show a little tragic situation that happens to many people, relevant to more tragic and extreme quotes, and then remove your hands and make nothing more, because this will be 90 minutes, enough to be called movie. F***, this crap is offensive. I mean, I'm not that stupid to like it. A 10 years old will make better movie. The most deserved 0/10 from me for now and I believe ever.… Expand

3 of 7 users found this helpful34

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61	#61 Most Discussed Movie of 2003
16	#16 Most Shared Movie of 2003