The Passion of the Christ
Newmarket Films | Release Date: February 25, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
20
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The film is never dull -- no mean feat, given that it spends two hours telling a story whose end is widely known -- and features performances that range from coarsely effective to phenomenal. Read full review
60
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Even within what often looks like a self-indulgent exercise in humiliation, pain and gratuitous gore, there is no denying the moments of genuine and powerful feeling in The Passion of the Christ -- some of which, by the way, evoke Jesus's most profound teachings of Jewish principles. Read full review
60
EmpireIan Nathan
A tormented movie about torment; loopy, over-reaching and occasionally suspicious. Simultaneously, it is a daring artistic endeavour. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Expertly made, thanks largely to Jim Caviezel's fervent portrayal of Jesus and Caleb Deschanel's skillful camera work. But the film contains little to learn from, unless one is unfamiliar with basic Christian history. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Too much Good Friday and not enough Easter Sunday. Emphasizing Jesus' agony over His ecstasy, Gibson has delivered a blood-drenched epic more stunning for its brutal violence than for its depiction of the calvary. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The Passion of the Christ should have left audiences in a state of exaltation. Instead it just leaves audiences exhausted. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Mel Gibson may have changed the face of cinema forever. I think he has: He's made the first true Jesusploitation flick, a picture that, despite its self-righteous air of grave religiosity, is barely spiritual at all. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Controversial, yet undeniably powerful. Read full review
50
ConsequenceClint Worthington
It may exhaust you, it may offend you; it may guide you through Hell into something more revelatory. And how you receive the film may depend greatly on how you feel about the man who made it. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Gibson's intense concentration on the scourging and whipping of the physical body virtually denies any metaphysical significance to the most famous half-day in history. Read full review
50
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Instead of being moved by Christ's suffering, or awed by his sacrifice, I felt abused by a filmmaker intent on punishing an audience, for who knows what sins. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
In effect, aspects of Gibson's creative makeup -- his career-long interest in martyrdom and the yearning for dramatic conflict that make him an excellent actor, coupled with his belief in the Gospels' literal truth -- have sideswiped this film. What is left is a film so narrowly focused as to be inaccessible for all but the devout. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Did it move me? And the answer is no. I thought it has a certain ghoulish, voyeuristic fascination, but I found it strangely remote and uninvolving on both emotional and spiritual levels. Read full review
40
The New York TimesDana Stevens
On its own, apart from whatever beliefs a viewer might bring to it, The Passion of the Christ never provides a clear sense of what all of this bloodshed was for, an inconclusiveness that is Mr. Gibson's most serious artistic failure. Read full review
40
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
X-ploitative though it may be, the spectacle of a man beaten and tortured to death seeks to be an object of contemplation. Serious questions are raised. Read full review
40
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
It's too turgid to awe the nonbelievers, too zealous to inspire and often too silly to take seriously, with its demonic hallucinations that look like escapees from a David Lynch film; I swear I couldn't find the devil carrying around a hairy-backed midget anywhere in the text I read. Read full review
40
Film ThreatJay Bliznick
Who is this film for? It’s for the Christian followers who haven’t really read their scripture. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
What I do know is that I was gripped for a while by the strength of Mr. Gibson's filmmaking, only to be repelled and eventually excluded by his literalist insistence on excruciation. There is watching in horror, and there is watching in horror. Read full review
40
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
The $25 million of his own that Gibson is said to have put into this film may be conscience money, and the savagery in the picture may--consciously or not--be Gibson's way of saying that violence is not always valueless. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
It isn't just the violence that is overplayed. There is so much creepy-Gothic Sturm und Drang in The Passion that at times it seems as if Clive Barker should get credit for the story along with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read full review
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