Oldboy
Tartan | Release Date: March 25, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
It's a movie of such jaw-dropping violence, wild improbability and dazzling style it overpowers all resistance. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
This hunt for revenge is really a quest for self-discovery. The story, acting and brilliant directing elevate Oldboy into a human struggle to know yourself and your place in the universe, and to live with that sometimes terrible knowledge. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Oldboy is a powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare. Read full review
100
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Park's direction is flawless and Jung Jung-hoon's cinematography is stunning. Read full review
100
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
It's a work of art for sure, but a sadistic one. Oldboy is one of the year's best; it just isn't for everyone. If you're still interested, go for it. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Startling and amazing -- a cinematic hammer to the skull. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw
It's a movie that you feel you're not so much watching on screen as having beamed directly into your skull from some malign, alien planet of horror. Read full review
90
The AtlanticDavid Sims
Oldboy is mostly absorbing because of the intense anguish radiating off the screen at all times; Park’s ability to effectively communicate obsession, and put the audience in the head of someone who has almost entirely lost touch with his sense of self, feels unparalleled to this day. Read full review
90
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Whatever its oversteps and excesses (I do think Park ran a little amok with the computer gimcrackery), Oldboy has the bulldozing nerve and full-blooded passion of a classic. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Anguished, beautiful and desperately alive, Oldboy is a dazzling work of pop-culture artistry. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
As always with Park Chanwook, you just hold on and let him rip. Read full review
88
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Once the picture gets into Hollywood's bloodstream, it could well prove to be as influential as John Woo's 1989 crime thriller, "The Killer." Read full review
80
VarietyDerek Elley
A wild, intensely cinematic ride into two men's burning desire to get even. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The result is a powerfully visceral experience that justifies itself almost entirely on surface chops, with striking color composition and a complex sound design that elevates the story to an operatic scale. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
Obviously, this sort of taboo-flouting imagery isn't for everyone, but Park's vision is all of a piece. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
This is absolutely not a film for all tastes, but it's a masterpiece of pitiless power whose audacious, ambiguous climax strikes a note of insane romanticism as haunting as it is perverse. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
His film is not for the weak of stomach or heart, but it's a stunner all the same.
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
You will surely leave this movie shocked, shaken and surprisingly moved. And definitely stuck on that poor octopus. Read full review
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Its magnificence is that it takes itself dead serious. It's not entertainment, but it's sure a piece of toughness. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
While the climax is admittedly something of a letdown after all the build-up, it's a hopelessly, helplessly original film, all guts, no glory. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Regardless of how you look at Oldboy, it's unlike anything you are likely to have seen before. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
As mysterious as it is sinister. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
More than anything else, Oldboy recalls Alfred Hitchcock with all restraint tossed to the wind, or Hitchcock's most obsessed devotee, Brian De Palma, at his most nastily inspired. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
This nightmarish revenge drama from Korea is grueling, intense, cruel -- the very definition of extreme cinema. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
This is a movie about draining, tenderizing and chopping up the audience emotionally. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
It says something when you come out of a film as weird and fantastical as Oldboy and feel that you've experienced something truly authentic. I just don't know what. I can't think of anything to compare it to. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
It's just the kind of film that you'd expect a jury led by Quentin Tarantino to choose, a bloody and brutal revenge film immersed in madness and directed with operatic intensity. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Oldboy has the fatal air of wanting so desperately to be a cult movie that it forgets to present itself as a coherent one. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Oldboy caused a love-it-or-hate-it stir at Cannes last year, and how could it not: It's an onslaught made to cause a sensation. Consider me simultaneously jolted and depressed. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Entertaining to watch - notwithstanding the scene in which Dae-su eats a live animal - which is a good thing, because there is not much to think about here, outside of the choreographed mayhem. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Despite its director's skill at staging trash with dash, Oldboy is too long and portentous to be an enjoyable B movie. The movie's self-seriousness short-circuits its sensationalism. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
There's a lot less here than meets the eye. Read full review
10
L.A. Weekly
Put simply, in my humble opinion, Oldboy sucks. Read full review
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