Only God Forgives
RADiUS-TWC | Release Date: July 19, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
14
Negative:
19
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireDamon WiseJul 29, 2013
Experimental and uncompromising, Winding Refn and Gosling’s Drive follow-up is a tripped-out riff on the crime family movie in which The Grifters — literally — go to hell. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 22, 2013
Only God Forgives will, understandably, have people running for the exits, and running for the hills. It is very violent, but Winding Refn's bizarre infernal creation, an entire created world of fear, really is gripping. Every scene, every frame, is executed with pure formal brilliance. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 19, 2013
This is one of the most shocking and one of the best movies of the year. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJul 18, 2013
The movie contains little in terms of traditional action, and Refn never uses it in a rousing or exciting manner, either. That would break the nightmarish spell this strange, beautiful film casts on the viewer. A mother’s love has never been this ruinous. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoJul 15, 2013
It takes the basic form of the revenge flick and dips it in tar, making for a movie that comes out sticky, nasty, and black. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 22, 2013
Refn has consistently delivered films that have subverted our expectations, and has proven himself a master at stylistic self-reinvention, but this feels like the first time he’s gone back to any particular well. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramJul 19, 2013
It’s no "Drive," and even hardcore fans will struggle to love a film that’s as mad as a bag of prawn crackers, but as an exercise in style, it has many moments to savour. Read full review
60
The DissolveScott TobiasJul 17, 2013
Only God Forgives suffers from the disconnect between its stylistic high-art archness and its content’s pulp gratuitousness. Refn gives every sequence a hushed consideration, but there’s rarely a sense that he’s earned it with equivalent profundity in theme. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJul 16, 2013
Crushingly, the dependably perverse art-action director Nicolas Winding Refn has finally made a boring movie. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 22, 2013
Only God Forgives is a hypnotic fugue on themes of violence and retribution, drenched in corrosive reds. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 22, 2013
Only God Forgives is the spectacle of a brilliant young director spinning out in style. It’s a beautiful disaster. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 19, 2013
Only God Forgives is the kind of remarkable disaster only a very talented director can make after he finds success and is then allowed to do whatever he wants. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 19, 2013
Where "Drive" shrewdly mystifies, Only God Forgives stupefies. You can see its gears grinding. But I'll always hang on for a rare talent like Refn. Even when he stumbles, he leaves you eager to see what he's up to next. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jul 17, 2013
The results are sometimes striking, in pure visual terms, but rarely engaging; even as a brutish saga of underworld retribution, the film fails to get the heart pounding. Read full review
50
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJul 16, 2013
Refn may be taking himself too seriously or not taking anything seriously enough—it's hard to tell. But Only God Forgives, so brazen in its double-scorpion-bowl vision, is at least good for a giggle or two. Its sins are many, but after a while, it's not even worth keeping count. Read full review
50
Film.comJordan HoffmanMay 22, 2013
There’s no way to overstate the gorgeous look of this film, but the mannered dialogue and deliberateness of pace becomes less of an homage to Asian revenge films than a parody. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnMay 22, 2013
The movie is like one thin satiric lark inexplicably slowed down to the point of lethargy. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianJamie S. RichJul 18, 2013
Refn's trying to make too little stretch too far. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJul 17, 2013
It's a solemnly preposterous piece of designer revenge pulp, with actors who stand around bathed in red and blue light like David Lynch mannequins in between scenes of torture and murder. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 15, 2013
However mystifying, or downright boring, you find the result, rest assured that the Refn faithful will swoon. Peace be with them. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJul 18, 2013
Refn’s expectation-defying choice is laudable in theory, but Only God Forgives is a pretty awful drama. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigJul 18, 2013
God may forgive you for seeing this needlessly brutal film. But you won't forgive yourself. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJul 18, 2013
The Danish filmmaker's latest theater of the macabre is brutal, bloody, saturated with revenge, sex and death, yet stunningly devoid of meaning, purpose, emotion or decent lighting. Seriously. Artful shadows can certainly set a mood; too many and it merely looks like someone is trying too hard. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJul 17, 2013
Long after Only God Forgives concludes, only its scuzziness remains. This artistic misfire will forever be knocking on heaven’s door. Read full review
30
TimeRichard CorlissMay 22, 2013
The collision of violent spasms and art-film ennui leave the viewer’s brain bloody but unfilled. Read full review
30
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 22, 2013
The wallpaper emotes more than Ryan Gosling does in Only God Forgives, an exercise in supreme style and minimal substance. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 25, 2013
Ugly, gore-strewn and, ultimately, ridiculous. Read full review
25
New York PostSara StewartJul 18, 2013
The innovation of Refn’s latest is mostly just in the way it manages to merge gory and boring. At least it’s created a new movie adjective for me: goring. Read full review
25
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 18, 2013
The most objectionable thing about Only God Forgives isn’t that it’s shocking or immoral, but that it’s so finally, fatally dull. Read full review
20
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 6, 2013
What they're missing here is a story good enough to warrant visiting the same uncomfortably dark place and characters worth caring about. Instead, what we get is a film that boasts tons of atmosphere and flashes of Refn's visual style -- as well as an admirably unhinged performance from Kristen Scott Thomas -- but little else. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 18, 2013
Only God Forgives would seem to be a parody of something or other — "Blue Velvet"? "Last Year At Marienbad"? — except that the film takes itself seriously to the point of suffocation in telling its lurid tale of slaughter and revenge. Read full review
20
The New York TimesStephen HoldenJul 18, 2013
The movie is so devoid of emotion that its ritualized gore acts as a narcotic. Filmed in shades of red, with a minimal screenplay, Only God Forgives looks like a ghoulish fashion shoot in hell. Three words should suffice: pretentious macho nonsense. Read full review
20
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelJul 18, 2013
It’s not that overwrought violence and human depravity are unfit grist for art, but without a compelling plot and a modicum of character development, all this film has to offer is a repugnant prurience and heavy-handed atmospherics. Read full review
20
Time Out LondonDave CalhounMay 22, 2013
Style over substance doesn’t really tell the half of it: you can bathe a corpse in groovy light and dress it in an expensive suit, but in the end that rotting smell just won’t go away. Read full review
12
RogerEbert.comAli ArikanJul 19, 2013
Not only is this take on human relations unoriginal, it's also sophomoric and blatantly untrue. Read full review
0
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 19, 2013
In my own world, Only God Forgives plays somewhat differently. I thought it was just about the worst f---ing thing I’ve ever seen. In fact, I was depressed it wasn’t laughed off the screen. Read full review
0
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJul 18, 2013
Whether one thinks Only God Forgives is laughably awful — like, for instance, “Showgirls,” “The Color of Night” or “Battlefield: Earth” — or just plain terrible awful depends, appropriately, on how much you’re willing to forgive it. Read full review
0
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 18, 2013
This is the worst, least, dumbest picture made by people of talent this year. Read full review
0
ObserverRex ReedJul 16, 2013
In Cannes, one wag described it as “cinematic defecation” in print. I’d like to top that one, but as James Agee used to say, I know when I’m licked. Read full review
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