The Burnt Orange Heresy
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: March 6, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMar 3, 2020
In short, this is fundamentally a movie of surface pleasures, placing gorgeous actors in an equally stunning location and letting them parry with sharp words and lithe, angular bodies. Read full review
83
The PlaylistLuke HicksSep 12, 2019
The Burnt Orange Heresy stunts as a thriller, but it’s most intriguing when it gives way to soulful questioning of the career of criticism, a profession subjective enough to dodge checks and balances and neglect the significance of honesty, if it so chooses. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlan NgMar 6, 2020
The thriller aspect of the film acts as the payoff to audiences for having to sit through extended discussions. While it’s not the most clever or brilliant thriller, it’s exciting nonetheless and will have you on the edge of your seat to the end. Read full review
75
Original-CinThom ErnstAug 13, 2020
The Burnt Orange Heresy is more mysterious than mystery. Still, there are reveals best kept secret until the moment when they are intended to be dropped. Capotondi’s film requires patience, which may be problematic for those who don’t find discussions about art, truth, and the symbolic use of flies scintillating. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 6, 2020
This is no piece of pretentious fluff. It’s a grim and nasty but wickedly entertaining bit of business, seasoned with sharp little plot turns before an admittedly ludicrous but dramatically satisfying twist-on-top-of-a-twist ending. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenMar 3, 2020
The film allows that we are complicit in privilege for our fascination and envy. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijSep 9, 2019
The screenplay and the actors ooze charm as well as intelligence early on but the second half is more like a sleek thriller, something that's efficient but less jocular and surprising. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 10, 2020
With an abrupt and unwelcome shift in tone and a surprisingly ordinary resolution, The Burnt Orange Heresy falls short of its Hitchcockian aspirations. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 5, 2020
When a cast is assembled that is as elegantly depraved as the one in The Burnt Orange Heresy, attention must be paid. And this art-world thriller has enough burnished surfaces, glamorous locations, and dark doings to keep an audience rapt for much of the running time. Yet somehow you may end the movie feeling less full than when you began. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 3, 2020
This is a storyteller’s movie, one where we can’t really trust any story to be true. That’s something of a cheat, because we are set up to believe there are bigger deceptions going on and hidden agendas that simply don’t pan out or are left hanging. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzAug 3, 2020
The international cast manage to acquit themselves fine enough, with Jagger in particular having a ball as an energetic rapscallion. Read full review
63
Washington PostPat PaduaMar 9, 2020
A mostly smart and sexy crime drama, even if it loses steam by the time the ridiculous ending rolls around. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comWhitney SpencerMar 6, 2020
Clumsy in its second act with its humdrum dialogue wedged between an alluring first act and a hasty third act. With such a ripe opportunity to explore the contentious relationship between our ability to fabricate both art and love, the film is a seductive noir that, as a whole, comes up empty. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 29, 2020
A sprightly and mischievous cameo from Mick Jagger is one reason to enjoy this movie. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreAug 8, 2020
As a thriller, The Burnt Orange Heresy is entirely underwhelming, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicWeldon B. JohnsonMar 12, 2020
In the final minutes, the characters make several choices that defy logic, leaving the audience to wonder what happened to the savvy operators presented in the early parts of the film. Read full review
60
The New York TimesGlenn KennyMar 5, 2020
There’s some grim stuff here, but very little of Willeford’s mordant humor. A small and potent quantity of this quality is delivered by the larger-than-life rock star Mick Jagger in the role of Cassidy. Jagger shows a refreshing lack of conventional vanity by allowing both Bang and Debicki to tower over him. Read full review
60
TheWrapMonica CastilloMar 4, 2020
What really sets The Burnt Orange Heresy ablaze is the chemistry between Bang, Debicki and Sutherland. Each of their characters functions as a sort of walking puzzle, their motives slowly revealing themselves only as the story develops. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 6, 2020
Bang and Debicki are grand, and we’d be lucky to watch them in any movie. But it’s Jagger’s witchery you remember. Pleased to meet you — and at this point, there’s no need to guess the name. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 6, 2020
What a bummer that a movie that paints itself as a scintillating, sexually-charged, art-world thriller ends in a swamp of failed intentions. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenMar 5, 2020
The seductively photographed and well-acted production simply can’t gloss over the inconsistencies in the Scott B. Smith-credited adaptation, which pile up higher than all those discarded cigarette butts. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMar 2, 2020
Everything’s in place, and there’s not a weak link in the cast, with Debicki — lofty, playful, and unreadable — in especially beguiling form. The idea that art, like love, is something that you can make or fake, and that surprisingly few people can tell the difference, will always be ripe for exploration. And yet the movie stumbles. Read full review
50
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 9, 2019
Watching The Burnt Orange Heresy, you may find yourself wishing one of two things: that Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki had been around to make elegant little mystery capers with Alfred Hitchcock in his prime, or that Hitch were around today to direct this one, a marble-cool art-fraud thriller that begins lithely and sexily before, somewhat mystifyingly, it takes a terminal turn for the dour. Read full review
50
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 9, 2019
For all the commitment that Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki bring to the central roles, their characters never really emerge as autonomous beings from the faintly preposterous story they’re trapped in. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 5, 2020
Borrowing from a dozen better movies as it tries to blur the line between a forgery and a masterpiece, Capotondi’s film manages to undercut its thesis with each new stroke. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMay 12, 2020
Unfortunately, the digressions into an unformulaic art heist plot can't cure, and often exacerbate, The Burnt Orange Heresy's habit of dragging interminably whenever it focuses on anything other than James, Berenice, and Jerome. Read full review
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