My Winnipeg
IFC Films | Release Date: June 13, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
So it should come as no surprise that what Maddin eventually produced is a film about HIS Winnipeg, a psychological terrain that's no more -- nor less -- "real" than William Carlos William's Paterson or Marcel Proust's Combray. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Both the definition of ''my'' and the definition of ''Winnipeg'' become profoundly fluid in this exquisite ''docu-fantasia'' (Maddin's term), an entrancing riffle through the olde curiosity shoppe of the filmmaker's psyche. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
(1) Shot for shot, Maddin can be as surprising and delightful as any filmmaker has ever been, and (2) he is an acquired taste, but please, sir, may I have some more? Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Maddin talks at length about Winnipeg's hidden layers, but what makes My Winnipeg perhaps his best film to date is that so much of it is right out in the open. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeFore
Hilarious for those on Maddin's mad wavelength and more varied than his strictly fictional features. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
This haunting phantasmagoria of a film -- comic, singular, surreal -- is not only something no one but the Canadian director could have made, it's also a film no one else would have even wanted to make. Which is the heart of its appeal. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Mock-heroic yet still lyrical, faux-mythic but honest too, uniquely and absurdly and often hilariously Canadian, My Winnipeg is like no documentary you've ever seen. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Deeply personal, wryly funny and fantastically cinematic. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Ann Savage, the femme fatale from a slew of old Hollywood noirs, is savagely funny as Maddin's beauty-parlor proprietress mom. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Maddin's Winnipeg is a rich, funky, funny stew of fears and desires, of mangled civic chronology mashed up with hothouse private emotions. This is a secret history, and it's a wonder. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's sometimes uneven, but it's glorious, too, with constantly churning invention and the guarantee that you have never seen anything like it before -- unless it came from Winnipeg and Guy Maddin. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
My Winnipeg is overloaded and digressive--it comes with the territory--but it's also grounded in a place, Maddin's Manitoban hometown, and it's painfully engrossing. Read full review
80
The DissolveNoel Murray
Maddin mixes personal reminiscences with elaborate fantasies of Masonic rituals and collectivist brothels, to construct a vision of Winnipeg as a city of sleepwalkers, roaming through mazes of snowbanks. In the end, it’s the “my” that matters more than the “Winnipeg.” Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
In the course of this clanging, spectral memoir, all of the artist's previous movies--from his underground mock epic "Tales from the Gimli Hospital" through his faux–Soviet silent "The Heart of the World" to his period spectacular "The Saddest Music in the World"--come to mind. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Maddin's real point -- and, for admirers of this brilliant and idiosyncratic artist, the true source of the movie’s interest -- is that Winnipeg explains him. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Like all poetic inward journeys, My Winnipeg is likely to resonate with sympathetic viewers in unexpected ways. In viewing his apparently placid prairie city, and his apparently placid prairie childhood, as an intensely symbolic landscape of mystery and terror, Maddin invites all of us to view our own equally ordinary lives in the same light. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
This autobiographical meditation is seductively funny, as well as deliciously strange, and hauntingly beautiful, as well as stream-of-consciousness cockeyed. Read full review
80
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
The faux-doc/tone-poem hybrid My Winnipeg is a worthy product. Read full review
80
Washington PostPhilip Kennicott
Maddin has called his new film a "docu-fantasia," and it's an apt label for an entirely idiosyncratic mix of local myth and history, dubious science, salacious gossip, personal rumination and endless camp humor. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The movie is dominated by Maddin's usual black-and-white photography, silent-movie syntax, and deadpan melodrama. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid Parkinson
Witty, moving and visually dazzling. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Guy Maddin's films are always delightful, but his latest, My Winnipeg, has an added treat for film buffs: It features Ann Savage! Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
It's a twisted but beautiful love letter to a city, not factually correct but emotionally true. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
The best way to take this film is with a box of popcorn and a grain of salt. Read full review
70
VarietyEddie Cockrell
Though it may feel undernourished to the faithful, Winnipeg is an easily digestible meal, for the uninitiated and fans alike. Read full review
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