Tale of Tales
IFC Films | Release Date: April 22, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
3
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 18, 2015
It is a masterpiece of black-comic bad taste and a positive carnival of transgression. The secret is the deadpan seriousness with which everything is treated. Read full review
90
Village VoiceApril WolfeApr 21, 2016
Tale of Tales is the most faithful and creatively rendered fairytale onscreen to date, bizarrely satisfying and totally worth a patient, focused viewing. Read full review
88
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJun 2, 2016
Despite the fabulism of Tale of Tales, it remains rooted in contemporary issues. Prince Charming does not figure much in this film, but women do. Read full review
83
HitfixGregory EllwoodMay 18, 2015
A slightly bumpy two hours of storytelling, but it's peppered with wonder and unexpected humor. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMay 5, 2016
Even if its stumbles a bit with its less-than-satisfying conclusion, the blend of humor, horror and grotesque whimsy on display throughout Tale of Tales combine to create what often feels like some sort of grown-up, far darker cousin to "The Princess Bride." Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 18, 2015
Tale of Tales dances on a razor’s edge between funny and unnerving, with sequences of shadow-spun horror rubbing up against moments of searing baroque beauty. The result is a fabulously sexy, defiantly unfashionable readymade cult item. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounMay 18, 2015
Tale of Tales might lack magic in the immediate, flashy sense, but its strange spell is altogether seductive and special. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 18, 2015
With starkly enigmatic, but beautifully wrought and filigree imagery, with a dark cutting humour which is bleak rather than ironic, Garrone is not interested in touching our hearts or giving us a comfortable moral. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungMay 18, 2015
Tale of Tales combines the wildly imaginative world of kings, queens and ogres with the kind of lush production values for which Italian cinema was once famous. The result is a dreamy, fresh take on the kind of dark and gory yarns that have come down to us from the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, only here they're pleasingly new and unfamiliar. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLee MarshallMay 18, 2015
Garrone’s new film reminds us that traditional fables don’t need injections of contemporary relevance to grip, stir and disturb us. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonMay 12, 2016
It’s not for kids, however; though not rated, it has some nudity and violence that would veer into R territory. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanApr 28, 2016
Garrone has created a world of both rich and ugly textures — visual, narrative and imaginative — that transports, delights and imparts disturbing lessons. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyApr 27, 2016
This is one of those cases where a movie is ornamented by its defects. Garrone’s undiscriminating direction of the cast, none of whom appear to be acting in the same movie, textures the film with mismatched accents, somehow adding to its macabre humor and overall strangeness. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnMay 18, 2015
Although wobbly in parts like so many cinematic anthologies, Garrone's alternately silly and entrancing adaptation of Giambattista Basile's Neapolitan stories provides a welcome gothic antidote to more stately treatments of similar material. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 18, 2015
Tale of Tales is magnificent, the way a performing bear can be magnificent. Read full review
70
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisApr 21, 2016
Strip away the smatterings of sex and globs of gore, and children would really get a kick out of Tale of Tales, Matteo Garrone’s colorful and kinky exploration of what women want. And what men will do to give it to them. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneApr 18, 2016
Where the eyes of a Disney princess grow wide as her pumpkin becomes a coach, the folk in Tale of Tales accept that miracles happen, being not an irruption into life but part of its natural flow. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 18, 2015
Taken together, the parables serve primarily to entertain — an effect that has as much to do with Garrone’s command of the cinematic language as it does the content itself. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyApr 22, 2016
As much candy as the movie encourages the eyes to gorge on, Tale of Tales is 135 pretty minutes of empty calories. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenApr 17, 2016
Matteo Garrone returns the fairy tale to its roots in cautionary horror grounded in deep, contradictory, neurotic relationships with gender and patriarchy. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangApr 28, 2016
Diverting but rarely transporting, unpredictable yet strangely overdetermined, Garrone's film never conjures the sustained, enveloping magic promised by its extravagant design and its agreeably unhinged story sense. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghApr 28, 2016
It’s never a boring film to look at, but it is often a tiring one. Running over two hours, the film is bloated with portent and repetition, each story taking too long to get to its inevitable moral. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 21, 2016
The two sisters one is the cleverest, the two albinos one the most unfathomable and “The Flea” the least inscrutable. See it for the eye candy, the vivid recreation of an Italian “Once upon a time,” all of it done without computers and digital fakery. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithApr 21, 2016
An English-language film from Italy, Tale of Tales toys with the ogres, princesses and crones of classic fairy tales to almost no dramatic effect, albeit with lots of sex and gore. Imagine the Brothers Grimm’s cousins Tyler and Jake writing for a late-night slot on Cinemax and you’ll get the idea. Read full review
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