The Eight Mountains
Janus Films | Release Date: April 28, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
CineVueChristopher MachellMay 15, 2023
Its social reality – that of the emptying and decline of rural regions in Italy – is contemporary and vital, but there is something deeper and simpler at play here. In that simplicity, with its notes played purely, there is no need of distortion or abstraction to justify itself. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshMay 11, 2023
The love story that is The Eight Mountains expresses this ineffable relationship between those who know us best and the places in which we find ourselves with a rough-hewed grace and profound knowingness. Read full review
100
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 25, 2023
The performances are subdued and sublime, highlighting each character’s efforts to reject or embrace his fate, or both. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 24, 2022
This film has mystery and passion, it climbs mountainous heights and rewards you with the opposite of vertigo: a sort of exaltation. Read full review
90
The Irish TimesTara BradyMay 12, 2023
Happily, Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi put in mountain-sized performances to offset the film’s silences and propensity for postcard shots, bringing heart and guts to the chilliest scenery. A worthwhile hike through many obstacles to friendship. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 27, 2023
The spiritual dimension of Pietro and Bruno’s bond has its appeal, and one of the movie’s pleasures is that it takes male friendship seriously. There’s an expressly erotic dimension to the men’s love for each other, as can be the case with intimate relationships, though not an explicitly carnal one. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMay 24, 2022
Happily, the movie doesn’t exist only on paper. It lives in Marinelli’s and Borghi’s beautifully harmonized performances, in their expressive physicality and intense if sometimes hesitant emotions; in the soft-polished grit and enveloping romanticism of Daniel Norgren’s songs; and especially in the heart-stopping grandeur of Ruben Impens’ square-framed compositions. Read full review
89
TheWrapBen CrollMay 24, 2022
What sets The Eight Mountains apart is the degree to which co-directors van Groeningen and Vandermeersch strip away so much pretense and artifice, leaving nothing but a strong central question: What makes and prevents people from meaningfully connecting? The filmmakers then strike a refreshingly unsentimental tone when answering it. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyApr 28, 2023
Directed by Belgian filmmakers Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen, The Eight Mountains works slowly and patiently. It doesn't rush. This may be frustrating for some viewers, but the film works because of its slowness and patience, not despite it. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleApr 27, 2023
Just as the film’s near-sole setting — a remote mountain cabin beneath the peaks of northwestern Italy — beckons Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) throughout their lives, the intoxicating atmosphere of The Eight Mountains is a cherished retreat I’m already eager to revisit. Read full review
83
IndieWireElla KempMay 24, 2022
The Eight Mountains lovingly adapts Paolo Cognetti’s novel of the same name, a valentine to brotherhood and a shape-shifting tale of self-discovery, resilience, nature and love — platonic but more steely than any rock you could climb – that somehow rarely feels like it treads a single step of the endless stream of movies and literature capturing the ever-evolving yet enduring nature of all of those just mentioned things since time immemorial. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeMay 15, 2023
Sweeping and novelistic in scope, the film, adapted from an Italian bestseller by Paolo Cognetti, combines the earthy, rooted grit of Jack London with the vivid emotional landscapes of Elena Ferrante. Read full review
80
Little White LiesRafaela Sales RossMay 10, 2023
In this years-long dance between the two, The Eight Mountains plays as a gentle epic, equally accomplished in its minimalistic approach to intimacy as in its grandiose portrayal of landscapes, an immersive visual experience that needs not sacrifice the arcs of its characters to succeed in building arresting contemplation. Read full review
80
SlashfilmJeremy MathaiApr 27, 2023
No less than 40 years pass throughout the film, but the immediacy and almost casual flow of time makes it surprisingly easy to attune one's senses to what van Groeningen and Vandermeersch are attempting to communicate. Read full review
80
Time OutStephen A. RussellApr 17, 2023
Much like climbing a mountain, the two-and-a-half-hour runtime may occasionally feel arduous, but the emotional release is worth it once you reach the peak. Read full review
80
VarietyJessica KiangMay 24, 2022
Stately and serene from a distance, but up close riven with the fissures and follies of a friendship that costs both men so much but gives them even more, the movie, too, is a mountain. Read full review
75
Original-CinLiam LaceyMay 17, 2023
At just under two-and-a-half hours and spanning three decades, The Eight Mountains feels thorough, as well as sensitively acted and moving. Its weakness is a tendency toward grandiosity, treating an anecdotal drama as though it were an epic. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineGregory NussenApr 23, 2023
The film is a meditative, slow crescendo of wounded feelings and quiet epiphanies. Read full review
75
The PlaylistIana MurrayMay 24, 2022
The Eight Mountains is a sentimental ode to those singular friendships we make in our lives, the kind that can’t be severed by any amount of distance, physical or temporal. Even when there’s so much left unsaid, it’s the comfort they find in each other that resonates most. Read full review
71
Paste MagazineJacob OllerMay 23, 2023
Brilliant landscape photography and two pairs of poignant performances elevate the drama to an enjoyable distance above sea level. Read full review
70
Screen DailyWendy IdeMay 24, 2022
It’s a fairly conventional, risk-averse piece of filmmaking, but the film’s gentle, meandering story works its way to a conclusion which plays out in a minor key, suggesting that certain cycles are hard to break and that even a seemingly idyllic life comes at a cost. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMay 11, 2023
If the youthful scenes seem a little mannered (in presentation if not performance), it's in these sequences of reconstruction, of quiet communication between Pietro and Bruno, of a depiction of adult male friendship, that The Eight Mountains is at its most endearing. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMay 25, 2023
The look of the film is so spectacular that I almost want to recommend you see it solely for that reason. It wasn’t enough to save the film for me. Read full review
60
EmpireYasmin OmarMay 12, 2023
This beautifully shot drama transforms an Italian summer of fraternal love into a delicate, decades-spanning exploration of friendship. It’s overlong, and overfamiliar, but remains a nuanced dual character study. Read full review
60
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannMay 4, 2023
It's a film that sneaks up on its audience, revealing layers to friendship and other intimate relationships that otherwise would not be parsed through if there wasn't the time. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 24, 2022
It’s a pleasurable enough watch — nicely acted and with a gentle rhythm tuned to the main characters’ searching paths as they drift in and out of each other’s lives over 30 years — though ultimately, it lacks weight. Read full review
58
The Film StageJose SolísFeb 3, 2023
Whatever its pictorial beauty, often significant, this adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s bestseller exemplifies my distaste for films that depict toxic masculinity without questioning it, or even suggesting there is nothing heroic or brave about refusing to leave behind damaging practices as long as they perpetuate some limited idea of what constitutes manhood. Read full review
40
The New YorkerRichard BrodyMay 3, 2023
The filmmakers’ self-imposition of a pristinely clean aesthetic results in the kind of emptied, tranquillized, minutely calibrated experience that’s no less a matter of fan service than the latest installment of comic-book I.P., and offers no more meaningful a view of life. Read full review
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