Ten
Zeitgeist Films | Release Date: March 5, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyDeborah Young
10 dazzling and perceptive snapshots of women with which femmes everywhere can identify. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Iran's greatest filmmaker is fond of stripping personalities bare through conversations they have while riding in cars. Here he pushes his favorite dramatic device to its limit. Read full review
100
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
The ultimate lesson in less-is-more cinema, an intimate and revelatory character study as well as a brilliant, almost symphonic rendering of the distracted, anxious, half-alienated and half-meditative state in which we spend vast amounts of our lives. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleJonathan Curiel
A minimalist film, Ten looks and feels like a documentary. At the end, there is no big denouement, but a profound realization that the people we see on camera are all aching for answers -- and struggling to come to terms with their lives. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The new Abbas Kiarostami film is called Ten, and in it something amazing happens: nothing. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
There's no doubt that Kiarostami is giving us a lesson in social politics, but the education lies in the mosaic pieced together from conversations and situations. Read full review
90
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Nobody handles unvarnished interactions quite the way Kiarostami does, and for much of Ten, it's a kind of austere thrill to watch him focus so intently on one aspect of his craft. Read full review
90
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Kiarostami has been hailed as the premier humanist filmmaker at work in a larger Iranian cinematic renaissance, and all his formal signatures are on view here -- the small, intimate canvas, the loose, improvised air of the performances, the absence of an authoritarian directorial hand. Read full review
90
The New York TimesDana Stevens
A work of inspired simplicity. Read full review
90
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Conceptually rigorous, splendidly economical, and radically Bazinian. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The film offers a fascinating glimpse of the Iranian urban middle class, and though it eschews most of the pleasures of composition and landscape found in other Kiarostami films, it's never less than riveting. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyJohn Powers
One of the year's finest movies, it's not quite the masterpiece that some of Kiarostami's cultists want it to be. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Shows us, in an extraordinarily simple way, the hopes and frustrations of one woman's life. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A film made by a master, with a simplicity that is really revolutionary. It's a work capable of changing the ways you look at the movies - and at life. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
A glimpse into a society that has grown more open, more free, and also more casually selfish in its interpersonal aggression. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
One of the best films to open so far this year, but greeting each new work from a favored director as if it were equally brilliant can't be good for anyone, the director included. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Inexpensively shot on digital video, it's an invaluable work of art. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Breezy, entertaining and enlightening. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Ten may strain your patience but that's the high-stakes gamble of this provocative project. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The already minimalist filmmaker has gone positively threadbare with Ten, a movie that feels as if there was no director on the set. For the most part, there wasn't. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The shame is that more accessible Iranian directors are being neglected in the overpraise of Kiarostami. Read full review
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