Irreversible
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: March 7, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
9
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen 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
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The moral of Irreversible -- time destroys everything -- isn't nearly as profound as writer-director Gaspar Noé seems to think it is, which is why some critics have already dismissed the movie as the facile, misogynistic posturings of a provocateur. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Whatever else it may be, Irreversible is disturbingly unforgettable. It is impossible to have a blasé reaction to a film this visceral. Indifference is not an option. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It would be easy and convenient to dismiss Irreversible as blatant sensationalism. But Noe's bruising film is too artfully crafted to write off as exploitation. Read full review
80
VarietyLisa Nesselson
A demanding but rewarding emotional odyssey in a challenging visual package. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyJohn Powers
Noé calls Irreversible his "Eyes Wide Shut," though it's really more like "A Clockwork Orange." Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The fact is, the reverse chronology makes Irreversible a film that structurally argues against rape and violence, while ordinary chronology would lead us down a seductive narrative path toward a shocking, exploitative payoff. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Made with disarming craft and cunning. Intermixed in the memories it leaves of horror and disgust are glimpses of impressive technique and savvy psychological insight. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)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
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Noe's despairing view of human nature is as thoughtful as it is grim, limning the most appalling aspects of earthly experience in terms recalling Dante and Bosh, among other apocalyptic artists. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
"Time destroys all," claims the film, but the monstrous capabilities of human evil is the real culprit here, and Noe is determined to prove that the real evil that men do is not fodder for cinematic spectacle and cinematic entertainment. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
What isn't hard to say is that Noé really isn't a very talented filmmaker. Read full review
70
Film ThreatDan Wible
Let me set the record straight: Gaspar Noé is the real deal. Is he excessive? Yes. Manipulative? Sure. Pretentious? Absolutely. But, he’s also one of the most exciting filmmakers on the planet. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Noé shoots his sequences in long, unbroken takes, and the unblinking horror that results is, I think, the opposite of exploitation. There has been so much lurid bloodletting in the movies that you might think nothing could faze us anymore. Think again. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
There are strong ideas at play in Noé's undeniably audacious and technically stunning second feature, which goes as far as any film can in revealing the breakdown of order and the deterioration of the rational mind. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Noé isn't a kid (he'll turn 40 this year) but he's still young as a filmmaker; he may yet learn to control his desire to sear the audience's eyes out with a red-hot poker before he's even started telling a story. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Viewers should be warned that Irréversible means what it says: Your experience of this movie can not be forgotten once the die is cast. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
About halfway through Irreversible comes the longest sustained act of violence I've seen onscreen. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Once you're past THOSE scenes, and come to know the context and characters involved, you'll find something both deeply humanist and emotionally complex. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael 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
60
Film ThreatTim Merrill
Anyone with a weak heart or a queasy stomach should stay away. In fact, most everyone everywhere should stay away. But if you still want to see Irreversible, be prepared to see images that will upset and disturb you for a long, long time. Be prepared to be shaken to the very core. Read full review
60
Washington PostStephen Hunter
What we have here is a genuine outlaw work of art. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Whether you take the film as a deliberately vile act of filmmaking that unpacks rape-revenge scenarios while making a point about male desire, or simply as a deliberately vile piece of filmmaking, one thing is certain: It's about as close to a physical assault on viewers as movies get. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony 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]
50
USA TodayMike Clark
To cut Noe a break, it does become evident that he has a viable narrative concept. Told backward, á la "Memento." Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Stupid, vicious, and pretentious, though you may find it worth checking out if you want to experiment with your own nervous system. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
To get to the beginning, one must first get through the end, which is almost literally unendurable.
40
Los Angeles TimesManohla 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
40
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Though Mr. Noé; displays prodigious filmmaking technique, his punk-operatic meditation on life, love, anger and -- most important -- guilt is superficially inventive, but singularly adolescent. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Noe's summation is an ideological sucker-punch from a filmmaker who gets off on abusive relationships. He may as well have thrown a big ''whatever'' up on the screen. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Fails because of its gratuitous rape and violence and also because of its pretentious and intellectually one-dimensional grounds, which make the violence at the end feel even worse. Read full review
30
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Irreversible takes an adolescent pride in its own ugliness. “I Stand Alone" told me something about the world; this one tells me more than I want to know about the calculating mind of its maker. Read full review
25
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Maybe, you think, there is something daring and brilliant going on here: an excursion into the darkest territories of the human soul. But no. In the end -- or the beginning -- there is no point to all this. Or at least not a point worth making, and making us watch. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Irreversible, though, is not a Kubrickian head trip. All Noe has come up with is a turn-on for sadists. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
Noe isn't a graceful filmmaker. He wants to traumatize his audience, barnstorm us, make us pay in anxiety and sweat and scorched nerves for the ugly truths he wants us to swallow. Read full review
20
SlateDavid Edelstein
The 12 scenes of Irreversible--each shot in a single, semi-improvised take--constitute something of a tour de force. But so would being dragged through the streets by a wire noose. Read full review
10
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
From the end to the beginning--or is it from the inadvertently ridiculous to the would-be sublime?--Noé's stunt is an exploitation movie with a gimmick, not to mention a vacuous philosophy. Read full review
0
New York PostLou 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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