The Painted Bird
IFC Films | Release Date (Streaming): July 17, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
4
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 16, 2020
There’s never been anything quite like it — an exquisitely crafted work of cinematic art putting radiant black-and-white photography (by Vladimír Smutný) in the service of indescribably shocking images that reflect the darkest of human impulses, as well as the unquenchable will to survive. Read full review
100
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 8, 2019
I can state without hesitation that this is a monumental piece of work and one I’m deeply glad to have seen. I can also say that I hope to never cross its path again. Read full review
90
Film ThreatNorman GidneyOct 24, 2019
Hardly any of The Painted Bird is what you would call pleasant. It is often a difficult watch at times but is a consistently engaging one. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 16, 2020
The Czech writer-director Václav Marhoul has done an astonishing job of adapting Kosinski’s novel in all its brutality (and its moments of humanity), lensing the story through timeless, dream- and nightmare-like 35mm monochrome and delivering a near-masterpiece epic that will leave you exhausted after its 169-minute running time — but grateful you’ve seen one of the most memorable movies of the year. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJul 16, 2020
Oh, the movie is brilliant without a doubt, but it’s dotted with such shocking moments, and there isn’t a whiff of pretentiousness to be found. Only guts and incredible visuals. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineDiego SemereneJul 15, 2020
Václav Marhoul’s film is at its most magnificent when it lingers on the poetry of its images. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 14, 2020
“SEE THE MOVIE THAT NO AUDIENCE CAN OUTLAST!” – after actually taking in The Painted Bird, I can confirm that the horror more or less matches the headlines. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 13, 2020
The Painted Bird is a brutal kind of ordeal, but eerie, unearthly and even beautiful sometimes: a bad dream that leaks into waking reality. Read full review
80
EmpireAlex GodfreySep 8, 2020
While not exploitative and (mostly) not gratuitous, this is as tough as it gets — you bleed for this kid. Even if it gets a bit too much, you just can’t look away. Thrilling filmmaking. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 8, 2019
As in the book, the shock effect of coldly detailed incest, bestiality and sexual abuse, beatings, killings and mutilation is furiously nonstop in a film of nearly three hours. Rather than numbing the viewer, however, the parade of evil is presented in a dismaying crescendo of horror that offers no escape. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 8, 2019
Is The Painted Bird exaggerated? Does it go too far? Does it break the limits of taste? “Yes” on all counts. Walking out is an understandable and valid reaction but watching, getting angry, suffering and approaching understanding is also important too. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisJul 16, 2020
Nearly three hours in length, the movie becomes an endurance test with each heartless act, relentless in its depiction of a Hobbesian state of humankind, in which life has little innate value. Read full review
78
TheWrapRobert AbeleSep 8, 2019
The Painted Bird ... is not the wallowing miserablist parade you might fear, yet not quite the Holocaust-themed masterpiece it wishes to be. But it’s always starkly compelling as a reminder of why war survival stories are essential to our understanding of innocence and beastliness. Read full review
75
ObserverOliver JonesJul 17, 2020
All of this unvarnished evil is depicted with haunting beauty and uncompromising artistry. Shot in 35mm black-and-white by master Czech cinematographer Vladimír Smutný, every shot is breathtaking to behold. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 15, 2020
At nearly three hours long, and told with the book’s peripatetic structure, moving from nightmare to nightmare, The Painted Bird is not for the faint of heart. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 15, 2020
Extending its litany of horrors to nearly three hours, the film is certainly an endurance test. Yet its potent presentation, notably Vladimir Smutny’s striking monochromatic cinematography, gives the film the raw impact of a documentary. Read full review
70
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 8, 2019
The film’s sheer unblinking stamina is as impressive as its pristine formal composure, though it has to be said that at nearly three hours — somewhat surprising, considering the novel’s brevity — its blunt-instrument force doesn’t yield much fresh perspective on oft-dramatized atrocities. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 22, 2020
At a nearly relentless two hours and 49 minutes, “Painted Bird” is an excessive test of patience and tolerance for the range of human depravity touched on. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJul 17, 2020
It’s in trying to locate the — for lack of a better term — heart of the movie where problems emerge. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 16, 2020
The pummeling, totalizing horror of The Painted Bird ultimately proves its undoing. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 16, 2020
The Painted Bird spirals between fairy tale and history lesson as if it were trying to fly with a clipped wing. Several passages create a stomach-churning sense of inertia, but only during the very last shot does the whole thing manage to get high enough off the ground to offer a valuable perspective. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jul 15, 2020
All of this agony is captured with great skill and artistry. Shot in Cinemascope, in crisp 35mm black-and-white, The Painted Bird is beautiful just to look at, even when its content is unspeakably ugly; there are images that will burn themselves onto your memory, whether you want them to or not. Read full review
40
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergJul 16, 2020
While Kosinski’s prose renders the grotesque vivid by understatement, this adaptation often seems to have little purpose beyond literal-minded visualization. Read full review
33
The PlaylistRoxana HadadiJul 21, 2020
The Painted Bird is the kind of exploitative cinema that thinks drowning its viewers in increasingly drastic scenes of torture and brutality is inherently righteous. “Look at our terrible history!” “The Painted Bird” screams, but the film’s unrelenting onslaught of revolting ghastliness makes each chapter less impactful than the last. Read full review
20
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 8, 2019
There is beauty in the 35mm black and white landscapes and framings of this painterly widescreen feature, but it stands in stark contrast with the alienating narrative and tone of a film which, like Kosinski’s book, takes a strange relish in charting the descent of simple country folk of a never-named country into sexual depravity and joyless cruelty. Read full review
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