Mysteries of Lisbon
Music Box Films | Release Date: August 5, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
2
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirAug 4, 2011
Once you start to ride with the rapturous, gorgeous, digressive symphony of images and words and music in this film it's completely absorbing and unlike anything you've ever seen. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumAug 4, 2011
This enveloping dream of an epic narrative experiment comes from the great Chilean-born, France-based filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (Time Regained). Read full review
100
Village VoiceJ. HobermanAug 2, 2011
Leisurely and digressive, this generally exhilarating saga ("a storm of misadventures" per Ruiz) variously suggests Victor Hugo, Stendhal, and (thanks in part to the unnatural, emphatic yet uninflected, acting) Mexican telenovelas. The score is richly romantic; the period locations are impeccable. Read full review
100
VarietyRob NelsonAug 1, 2011
A handsomely mounted adaptation of the like-titled Portuguese novel, Ruiz's 4 1/2-hour epic establishes the essential ambiguity of its chameleonic characters from the get-go and proceeds thereby, with riveting results and revelations that continue right to the end. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 15, 2011
It's smart, energetic filmmaking that also makes for engrossing entertainment. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 1, 2011
In Mysteries of Lisbon, the prolific Chilean-born director and egghead Raúl Ruiz has achieved something remarkable, at once avant-garde and middlebrow: the apotheosis of the soap opera. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 15, 2011
It's a lot. But if you're at all inclined, it's just right. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertSep 14, 2011
I got a little lost while watching Mysteries of Lisbon and enjoyed the experience. It's a lavish, elegant, operatic, preposterous 19th century melodrama, with characters who change names and seemingly identities, and if you could pass a quiz on its stories within stories, you have my admiration. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineFernando F. CroceAug 1, 2011
A marvelously elastic storyteller, a dry wit, and a Rivettean anti-determinist, the Chilean auteur Raúl Ruiz is fascinated by narratives that dilate from within, images seemingly full of secret passageways, and fabulists who collect tales like toys. Read full review
85
NPRMark JenkinsAug 5, 2011
Ruiz, whose best-known films include his 1999 adaptation of Proust's "Time Regained," coolly roams the ambiguous territories between tragedy and soap opera, and between the traditional and the modern. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayAug 3, 2011
Mysteries Of Lisbon is an odd kind of epic: It's digressive and even trifling at times, and though a large cast wanders through the frame, the individual scenes tend to be focused on just two or three people, having winding conversations about political intrigue and affairs of the heart. Read full review
80
EmpireDavid ParkinsonDec 5, 2011
Storytelling of breathtaking scale and grandeur, even if the complex plotting may twist your synapses along the way. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenAug 11, 2011
The storytelling is straightforward, with a classical sheen, even as mischief and hallucination puncture the serene surface. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 4, 2011
Made for European television and originally divided into six one-hour episodes, the movie now runs an absorbing, astonishingly fast four and a quarter hours. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungAug 1, 2011
What is left is the sheer joy of storytelling, and willing audiences will find themselves caught up in a what-happens-next page-turner of a film. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSep 29, 2011
We are told at the film's beginning that we are about to see a "diary of suffering," and it is that, but the effect, after four-and-a-quarter hours, is exhilarating. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisAug 25, 2011
Mysteries of Lisbon brings us far inside oil-on-canvas in a way that isn't imitative. It's simply, magically a moving picture, what a movie in the 1800s would look like. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnAug 3, 2011
A four-and-a-half hour period piece littered with interconnected events spread across many years, it moves forward with fits of intrigue, interspersed with casual developments that deaden its momentum and call into question its monumental running time. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 2, 2011
Comfortable with subtle Proustian detachment, the director has taken another stab at colossal scope, this time getting lost in the cerebral folds. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineRichard MoweAug 1, 2011
A feast for the eyes, Mysteries of Lisbon deals with 19th century passions, love affairs and escapades on a broad canvas. It might have made a lovely TV series, parsed out over several weeks, but at one sitting it's a challenge. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 5, 2011
The result is a dull, high-minded soap opera. Read full review
More From This Movie

82 Critic Reviews

5.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 68 Crime 101
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL