Lady Macbeth
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: July 14, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
31
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Washington PostMaia SilberJul 20, 2017
Oldroyd’s brilliance (and Pugh’s) is to probe this age-old archetype — the Gothic antiheroine, the adulteress — and find pathos and cruelty. It’s also to uncover the complex web of hierarchies — of race and class, as well as gender — that ensnare and empower her. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 29, 2017
Cleverly, it gives us enigmatic backstory hints that may or may not help explain the sudden direction change the film takes in its third act, leading to a denouement of toxic ingenuity. And of all it driven by the sensuality and rage of Pugh’s performance. Read full review
100
The TelegraphTim RobeyApr 29, 2017
Pugh is mesmerising. Read full review
91
The Film StageJordan RuimySep 19, 2016
Oldroyd captures our gaze with every frame and doesn’t balk at the story’s more shocking sections. He means to shake us and does. Read full review
90
VoxAlissa WilkinsonJun 29, 2017
If you can adjust to the idea that you’re not meant to sympathize with anyone, Lady Macbeth is quite a film. Read full review
90
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 17, 2016
Superbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 17, 2016
An impressively stark, narratively ruthless Victorian chamber piece that feels about as modern as its crinolines will permit, William Oldroyd’s pristine debut feature slowly reveals a violent moral ambiguity that needles the mind far longer than its polite period-piece trappings suggest. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJul 27, 2017
Pugh, a young newcomer with just a tiny handful of film credits, gives a performance of rare ferocity. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJul 27, 2017
A rebuke to the genteel period costume dramas that have long reigned as arthouse staples. Working from a screenplay by Alice Birch, director William Oldroyd turns the genre on its head, penetrating the pretty exteriors that conceal wild and dangerous emotions. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 20, 2017
Throughout Lady Macbeth we see Pugh's eyes, full of possibility and optimism at the outset, gradually darken. Even her breathing changes. It's a wonderful performance in a very fine film. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 13, 2017
Even when Oldroyd loses his directorial grip, Pugh is there to make things right. Not many young actress have that sort of power to command the screen as if by divine right. She dives deep into this terrifically twisted, erotic thriller and makes it matter. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeJul 12, 2017
By engaging with multiple forms of oppression, the film forms a radical statement on the intersections of racism, classism, and sexism that elevates it far beyond a nicely shot, Victorian-era episode of "Snapped." Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 17, 2016
With no score and zero levity, Lady Macbeth maintains a constant atmospheric dread. Oldroyd crafts a masterful sense of uncertainty about how far Katherine will go to preserve her dominance. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghJul 20, 2017
In many ways Lady Macbeth is remarkable for what it isn’t. It isn’t a staid period drama. It isn’t romantic. It isn’t predictable. And it certainly isn’t comfortable. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 13, 2017
August Wilson knew that, which is why his plays resonate far beyond melodrama. So does Lady Macbeth. It eats into the mind with its vision of evil as a contagion that transforms victims into oppressors. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 13, 2017
Exact and exacting, made with formidable skill and unwavering focus, Lady Macbeth is a film that demands to be admired and cares little if you actually like it. Read full review
80
Total FilmNeil SmithJun 29, 2017
Madame Bovary meets Thérèse Raquin with a splash of Lady Chatterley in a pared-down drama that packs a real punch. Read full review
80
CineVueJamie NeishApr 29, 2017
Oldroyd has made a film here that's incredibly tied to its nineteenth century setting, yet modern at the same time in the way it addresses femininity - more importantly, the power women have no matter how they're viewed by society or expected to behave by their male counterparts. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeApr 25, 2017
Newcomer Florence Pugh is like a lightning bolt, totally electric as Katherine, who’s up there with Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina in the literary heroine stakes. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid ParkinsonApr 24, 2017
This intelligently scripted and imposingly played costume noir revisits the conventions of Victorian melodrama to comment on modern attitudes to oppression, prejudice and morality. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredBrogan MorrisNov 30, 2016
Lady Macbeth begins as a biting tale of female empowerment but slowly reveals itself to be something much crueler. Period pieces rarely feel this contemporary. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonSep 17, 2016
Lady Macbeth mostly operates within established period conventions, but draws fresh blood from antique material thanks to a sparky cast, subtle nods to contemporary race and gender issues, and a hefty shot of gothic melodrama. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJul 26, 2017
Lady Macbeth is a mash-up of a different sort — it’s not strictly Shakespeare, but based on a Nikolai Leskov novel that transplanted elements of the play to 1865 Russia. Like "Shanghai Knights," this film adaptation is a period drama, but the actions of the woman are faintly anachronistic — modern attitudes transplanted into 19th-century characters. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 19, 2017
Barely 20 years old at the time of filming, Pugh has a surface poise and an inner turbulence, a capacity to command the screen with the spectacle of her watching and thinking. The last time something like Pugh happened, she was called Kate Winslet, and the movie was “Heavenly Creatures.” Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 19, 2017
Lady Macbeth” is thus simple in the telling while leaving us with a lapful of thorns; it’s as sensual as a tryst and as wintry as a grave. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 18, 2017
The climax is deflating and lets down a fabulously grey woods, heather and moors production design and the wicked promise contained in the story’s premise — that there’s a little Lady Macbeth in every woman, at least as far as men are concerned. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJul 14, 2017
Lady Macbeth has the refined, pleasing trappings of a tasteful period piece with the vicious, beating heart of a brutal psychological thriller. You can’t stop watching its beauty, even as you long to look away from its cruelty. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 17, 2017
Few movies this year will be more likely to molest your sleep. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 13, 2017
Mr. Oldroyd boxes Katherine in his attractive visuals, imprisoning her as her male relatives do. Yet his intellectual distance also turns her into a specimen, a pinned butterfly turned taxidermy beast. Read full review
66
TheWrapClaudia PuigJul 13, 2017
It features a striking lead performance, but it ultimately leaves the viewer unmoved, and possibly confounded. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorJul 27, 2017
The brazenness of her actions and opacity of her emotions suggest a tragic heroine in the grand tradition – the novel is the basis for the Shostakovich opera of the same title – but the film lacks the propulsive drive to make her fate moving. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJul 13, 2017
There’s a provocative idea at the center of Oldroyd’s beautifully photographed film — repression exploding into madness and violence. But as the body count rises, Lady Macbeth loses its secret weapon: sympathy. Read full review
58
The PlaylistBradley WarrenSep 17, 2016
Underneath the dark humor and holistic mise en scène, there remains the nagging suspicion that what is onscreen is — in spite of the film’s best intentions — another patriarchal interpretation of Lady Macbeth. Read full review
53
Paste MagazineKenji FujishimaJul 13, 2017
Oldroyd...maintains such a rigorous distance from Katherine that she gradually seems less like a human being than like a mere carnival attraction. Read full review
50
ObserverOliver JonesJul 11, 2017
Oldroyd has found a terrific lead actress on which to hitch his wagon. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisJul 26, 2017
There’s an intriguing story to be told here, but there’s a better way to tell it. To borrow from the Bard, the spots in Lady Macbeth simply won’t wash away. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineSam C. MacMar 15, 2017
It isn't until its final moments that Lady Macbeth turns into the kind of meaningless, mean-spirited, and proudly irredeemable non-character study that likens it to, say, last year's emptily foreboding Childhood of a Leader. Read full review
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