Priscilla
A24 | Release Date: October 27, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 59 Critic Reviews
Positive:
50
Mixed:
8
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeDec 29, 2023
It is Coppola’s best film in 20 years. Read full review
100
VoxAlissa WilkinsonNov 10, 2023
Coppola’s talent is in taking this story — much harder-edged when translated to Versailles — and giving it the rosy sheen of a girl’s memory, of feeling the intensity of a star’s rays on her so keenly that there’s nothing to do but bask in it, at least for a while. Read full review
100
The Film StageLuke HicksSep 6, 2023
At the end of the day, Priscilla’s multifaceted brilliance comes back around to Coppola’s immaculate sense of restraint in both screenwriting and direction. Read full review
100
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 4, 2023
Have you ever had an intense experience—fallen madly in love, say—only to look back years later and feel it had happened to a different person, a person who had walked through a dream, and survived it, to get to the self you were destined to become? That’s the feeling Sofia Coppola captures in her quietly extraordinary Priscilla. Read full review
100
Rolling StoneMarlow SternSep 4, 2023
People may fault Coppola for dipping her toe in familiar terrain, but it’s hard to argue with the result: a transportive, heartbreaking journey into the dark heart of celebrity, and her finest film since Lost in Translation. Read full review
91
ConsequenceMary SirokyNov 2, 2023
Bolstered by the fantastic technical direction at every turn, Priscilla lands as a remarkably moving portrait not just of a pair of American icons, but also of a dissolving romance. Read full review
90
Little White LiesHannah StrongDec 28, 2023
The real beauty of Priscilla is its delicate portrayal of the all-consuming fire and flood of first love, and what happens when you grow up, and begin to realise the fairytale doesn’t always have a happy ending. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreNov 3, 2023
The marvel of Priscilla is in its dual awareness, how it’s able to immerse us in the bubble-bath-balmy perspective of a teenager experiencing an astonishing bout of wish fulfillment and, at the same time, always allow us to appreciate how disturbing what’s happening actually is. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 27, 2023
With piercing matter-of-factness, Coppola ends this movie, her strongest in more than a decade, at just the right moment. Read full review
90
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergOct 26, 2023
Die-hard Elvis fans will no doubt call some of the characterization in Priscilla slander, but part of the achievement here is that Elvis is not simply a monster. Fame has merely given him the superpower of not having to pay attention to anyone else. Read full review
90
TheWrapSep 4, 2023
The result is a meditative and thoughtfully feminine Sofia Coppola movie through and through—a sad, bored and confused young woman of certain privileges trying to make sense of her circumstances and, maybe, even coming of age. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 4, 2023
The daring thing Coppola does, given that we’re used to seeing even sophisticated biopics weave the lives they’re showing us into dramatic arcs, is to present the rise and fall of Priscilla and Elvis’s relationship as a diary, one that simply flows forward in a kind of objective Zen fashion, never trumping anything up. Read full review
90
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 4, 2023
It is a unique story, told in a distinct way. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 4, 2023
It elegantly upgrades a key player in the Elvis legend from the sidelines, and anyone attuned to Coppola’s distinctive wavelengths will find it a pleasurably emotional experience. Read full review
90
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeSep 4, 2023
This isn’t a story of rock music and stage theatrics; it’s about the woman who waited, in a home she was forbidden to leave, for the musician to come and deliver the love he promised. And it’s about the day she decided to stop waiting for it. Read full review
89
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 30, 2023
Priscilla the movie is as complicated and beguiling as Priscilla the woman. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenNov 8, 2023
Priscilla is one of Sofia Coppola’s “moments movies” — stories told not necessarily via plot, but via the textures, sounds, and accessories that combine to create an indelible 30 seconds or so, seconds which say as much about a character and their experience as endless pages of dialogue could. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 2, 2023
Priscilla, the movie, exists in a state of hushed wonderment, magical one minute, bittersweet the next. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldOct 31, 2023
Coppola tells the story through lush mood, meticulous art direction, swimmy music (not Presley’s) and her two actors’ gloriously big-screen faces. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiOct 10, 2023
Coppola’s movie is packed with many similarly smart, but never egotistical storytelling decisions and is easily one of the finest films of her career. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennySep 4, 2023
This cool, unhurried movie is firmly anchored by a spectacularly modulated performance by Caillee Speeney. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubLauren J. CoatesNov 2, 2023
Unafraid of shattering rose-tinted glasses, Coppola’s film is fierce in its subtlety, relying on Spaeney’s breathtaking performance and the inherent tragedy of Priscilla’s story to deliver a film that’s equal parts beautiful and heartbreaking. Read full review
83
The PlaylistElena LazicSep 4, 2023
Through subtle detail, a degree of convenient biopic irreality, and a pace that encourages viewers to think beyond first impressions, the film shows a relationship with elements of abuse that is much more complex than the label often suggests. Read full review
82
The AtlanticShirley LiNov 9, 2023
Priscilla is more than a story of a young woman in a gilded cage; it’s also an examination of how adolescent beliefs can be hard to shake. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJan 5, 2024
Coppola evokes the aching loneliness and isolation experienced by women who simultaneously have everything and nothing. Read full review
80
EmpireBeth WebbDec 20, 2023
With its woozy aesthetic and dynamic, beguiling cast, Priscilla is textbook Sofia Coppola: not breaking the mould, but a sublime continuation of her sad-girl sensibilities. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicAmanda LubertoNov 8, 2023
Once again, Sofia Coppola captures how it feels to be a woman unrealistically idolized by a romantic partner — instead of simply respected. Read full review
80
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannNov 3, 2023
Priscilla is another masterwork from Coppola, a study of a woman in a gilded cage and her journey to freedom with two central performances that will go down as some of the best in Coppola's entire filmography. Read full review
80
ABC NewsPeter TraversOct 27, 2023
In Sofia Coppola’s bittersweet biopic, Elvis takes a backseat to Priscilla Presley—shining new star Cailee Spaeny—who met the King (a dangerously seductive Jacob Elordi) at 14, married him at 21 and finally escaped his Graceland pumpkin shell to become her own woman. Brava! Read full review
80
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerOct 27, 2023
Though Coppola may be singing a familiar song, it rings with clarity and purpose, and unlike most biopics, it does not outstay its welcome. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenSep 4, 2023
Empathetic rather than judgy, Coppola’s relationship drama hands agency back to its young heroine. Read full review
80
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 4, 2023
Priscilla is not an emotional epic, nor is it a furious correction of the record. It is, instead, a convincing and humane sketch of a young woman caught up in something vast and eternally defining. She may as well be wandering Versailles. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 4, 2023
There is quite literally a darkness at the heart of the American dream as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl. Read full review
80
BBCNicholas BarberSep 4, 2023
Perhaps the film could have done with a little more conversation and a little more action, but it's still a quietly affecting, sympathetic tribute to the kind of person who is a supporting character in most biopics. Read full review
80
IGNRafaela Sales RossSep 4, 2023
Sofia Coppola proves to be the perfect choice to tackle the life of Priscilla Presley through a film that deeply understands the desires and dreams of a teenage girl Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 4, 2023
The film’s signature move is poking around the strange psychological grey space between being kept and being caught. Read full review
80
NMEMatthew TurnerSep 4, 2023
Spaeny is superb as Priscilla, making you feel every painful aspect of her emotional journey, from infatuation and initial confusion through to heartbreak and finally self-discovery. Similarly, Elordi makes a terrific Elvis. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 4, 2023
Coppola’s portrait is absorbing, especially in Priscilla’s child phase, and if it is less distinctive in its final section, as Priscilla becomes more briskly disillusioned and realistic about what to expect, then that is to be expected. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisOct 30, 2023
Watching Priscilla feels much like reading a book, with images of white pills pressed into open palms and home-movie montages enhancing the text. Once again, the younger Coppola demonstrates she is as accomplished a filmmaker in her own way as her father. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 1, 2023
Spaeny, with the aid of Coppola’s finely honed script and the first-tier makeup and wardrobe teams, does a marvelous job of capturing Priscilla’s transition from a ninth-grader who finds herself starring in her own fairy tale to a 28-year-old mother who knew her marriage was over long before it was finally over. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyMaureen Lee LenkerOct 27, 2023
Priscilla is incisive in its portrayal of its central relationship, but it needs a little less conversation, a little more action when it comes to its heroine's path to self-determination. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleOct 25, 2023
As a movie, Priscilla is the diametric opposite of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” Where Luhrmann’s film was lurid and careening, Coppola’s is muted and textured. Her film is a kind of fairy tale that turns claustrophobic and cautionary. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 19, 2023
Cailee Spaeny delivers a suppressed and yearning to break free performance in the title role in a movie that doesn’t give Mrs. Presley much in the way of fireworks as she struggles to gain agency in her life from a man who was, from her early teens (14) her entire life. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 4, 2023
Priscilla may not be one of the better movies that Coppola has ever made . . . but it stands apart from the rest of her work as the uniquely sensitive and self-honest portrait of a girl who starts to realize that she may have outgrown her greatest fantasy. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 3, 2023
To point out that Priscilla is superficial, even more so than Coppola’s other films, is no derogation, because surfaces are her subject. She examines the skin of the observable world without presuming to seek the flesh beneath, and this latest work is an agglomeration of things—purchases, ornaments, and textures. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithNov 3, 2023
Priscilla is gorgeous and at times intoxicating, but like Ms. Coppola’s previous efforts, it could do with less woolgathering and more character development. Read full review
67
Original-CinKaren GordonNov 3, 2023
There is an emotional core to Priscilla, and in Coppola’s gentle way, we’re shown a portrait of an unusual relationship, and come away with a less flattering picture of Elvis, more of the fallible human, as opposed to the music icon, frozen in time. Read full review
65
SlashfilmShae SennettOct 26, 2023
Where the 2023 film succeeds is a visceral emotional and textural experience. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittOct 26, 2023
“Elvis” is zippy and energetic while Priscilla is methodical, bordering on sedate. However, the biggest sin with Priscilla is Coppola never really digs into her wants and desires apart from Elvis. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineDavid RobbOct 4, 2023
Priscilla’s delicate mystique struggles to free itself from an oppressive mood board imposed from without by six decades of history. Read full review
More From This Movie

79 Critic Reviews

tbd User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 71 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL