The Testament of Ann Lee
Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 5, 2026
Fastvold circumnavigates the lack of historical evidence of Lee’s life by building on what is known via compassionate imagination. Read full review
100
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsFeb 23, 2026
It’s Fastvold who somehow makes all these elements coalesce with such brio and eccentricity, expanding the possibilities of filmed biography while also making a film that manages to land direct hits to the head, the heart and the gut. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussJan 21, 2026
This is a transcendent cinematic vision you can dance to. By God, it’s inspired. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenJan 9, 2026
A most unusual musical and a genuinely remarkable movie. Read full review
100
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonDec 26, 2025
That it may not be to everyone’s taste, or to yours, feels almost besides the point. When an artist takes a swing this colossal and stays true to their vision in every way, the resulting work deserves respect, and is always worth seeing. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesDec 26, 2025
The Testament of Ann Lee is primarily a film about the pull and power of belief. Delivered in a style that evokes its historical moment while also cutting across time to the present, it lands with the enthralling, incantatory force of urgent prayer. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 4, 2025
Ultimately, the director leaves us with more questions than answers. Which is probably what art should always strive to do. Read full review
100
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeSep 2, 2025
The extravagance of Fastvold’s techniques can sometimes get in the way of the characters. Strong supporting actors such as Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie and Christopher Abbott don’t quite succeed in making personalities heard over Blumberg’s bewitching arrangements. But, as cinema of melodic effect, The Testament of Ann Lee could hardly be bettered. Read full review
94
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 12, 2026
Seyfried, who has already cemented her status as one of today’s most beguiling and unpredictable performers – any other actress would get whiplash going from playing tech-schemer Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout to a betrayed opera virtuoso in Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils to the sudsy theatrics of last week’s The Housemaid to this – is simply phenomenal. Read full review
91
Original-CinLiam LaceyJan 29, 2026
The Testament of Ann Lee can be seen as a feminist companion piece to the much-awarded 2024 film The Brutalist, which Corbet directed and Fastvold co-wrote, starring Adrian Brody as a fictional Holocaust survivor and brilliant architect. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubCaroline SiedeJan 2, 2026
The frenzied, lustful energy of the film’s first half makes it one of the most thrilling cinematic experiences of the year and, though the slower, more mannered second half struggles to recapture that same sense of propulsion, there’s a purpose to that too. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 1, 2025
The ultimate brilliance of Fastvold’s movie, which remains without question for all of its peaks and valleys, is that it has the courage to reimagine the essence of belonging itself; to see it not as something we find, but rather as something that we create together. Read full review
88
Washington PostMonica HesseJan 15, 2026
In “The Testament of Ann Lee,” we are given the rare chance to watch an exploration of a religion born instead of female pain. Read full review
85
TheWrapBen CrollSep 1, 2025
The Testament of Ann Lee is a loud film about the quiet within, almost always choosing to impress rather than entertain. Read full review
80
EmpireSophie ButcherMar 2, 2026
A one-of-a-kind cinematic experience from Mona Fastvold, shot in glorious 70mm, fuelled by music and movement that will shake your soul. See it on the big screen, if you can. Read full review
80
Time OutMatthew SingerFeb 27, 2026
A cradle-to-grave portrait of Ann Lee, the founder of the Christian sect known as the Shakers, the film is, at turns, completely stunning and utterly baffling. At its most successful, though, it doesn’t just depict ecclesiastical fervor – it sweeps you up in it. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 22, 2026
The Testament of Ann Lee is a biographical film about a real person, though one about whom a great number of details aren’t known. It runs up against some rough patches during the telling of the story, but overall it is immensely enjoyable, an unflinching (and nonjudgmental) look at faith, no matter how bizarrely we may think it’s practiced. Read full review
80
The New YorkerJustin ChangJan 13, 2026
I confess that I was held so spellbound by Fastvold’s musical flights of fancy—and by the attendant sweep and muscularity of her filmmaking—that I felt let down by the more prosaic moments, when everyone doesn’t erupt into song and dance. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekJan 2, 2026
The Testament of Ann Lee is unimaginable with any other actress—but then again, it’s unimaginable, period, a movie that takes big chances in a culture that, most days, seems allergic to them. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearJan 2, 2026
The movie isn’t just a paean to a pioneer spirit. It’s equally a testament to the actor playing her. Read full review
80
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaJan 2, 2026
An intoxicating historical musical about faith, led by career-best work from Amanda Seyfried. Read full review
80
The RevealScott TobiasDec 30, 2025
The Testament of Ann Lee suggests a bigger story than Fastvold has the time or resources to tell, but it stays close to Seyfried’s hip and allows the purity of Ann’s vision to carry the day. Read full review
80
ColliderJeff EwingOct 2, 2025
Some moments could benefit from lessened narration, a longer cut in an individual scene, or the maintenance of a less dreamlike tone, but it's a fine film that provides one of the most unique cinematic experiences in biopic history. Read full review
80
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 9, 2025
A collision of agony and ecstasy that approaches the divine even as it reveals piousness to be an outgrowth of, and justification for, earthly suffering, it’s like nothing the genre has seen before. Read full review
80
Screen RantJack WaltersSep 1, 2025
While Seyfried’s performance and Fastvold’s direction are almost without fault, there are several moments where the screenplay touches on some fascinating ideas but then never returns to them again. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 1, 2025
The free-range majesty and fine-grained, muddy-fingernailed detail of Fastvold’s film, though, is entirely its own thing: like Ann, I was left wobbly and breathless by its grandeur and nerve. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 1, 2025
The Testament of Ann Lee is rich in agnostic questioning and bemused human interest, but at such radiant peaks, Fastvold makes believers of us all. Read full review
80
Next Best PictureCody DericksSep 1, 2025
Regardless of one’s beliefs—or lack thereof—”The Testament of Ann Lee“ is an undeniably moving and inspirational story of holding true to one’s convictions and finding strength in a like-minded community, effectively brought into the 21st century through powerful, stirring music. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckJan 2, 2026
No matter how you feel about the history here, it’s a visceral performance that simply demands to be seen. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comPeyton RobinsonDec 30, 2025
The Testament of Ann Lee is a large-scale production, mighty in detail, and Fastvold proves herself up to the challenge of her own aspirations, tackling the weighty biography with the same sort of labor-intensive dedication characteristic of its subject. Read full review
75
The Travers TakePeter TraversDec 19, 2025
The tension flattens in the film’s drowsy second half, but the blazing wonder of Amanda Seyfried as Shakers leader Ann Lee makes believers of all Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 5, 2025
It’s gutsy and largely works, though something about the theatricality of it all kept me at a distance. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 4, 2025
For all its grandeur and dazzling tableaux, I left the theater a touch agnostic. Unwavering fanatics, no matter their rationale, do not always great protagonists make; even with Seyfried’s remarkable voice, presence, and energy, the music starts to skip. Read full review
75
The PlaylistMarshall ShafferSep 1, 2025
The Testament of Ann Lee often proves difficult to pin down, providing enthrallment in fits and starts rather than inducing a consistent state of rapture. It’s a bit slippery in the way that chasing the divine presence in art or life can be: present and tangible, then eluding one’s grasp like smoke. Read full review
70
Screen DailyWendy IdeSep 1, 2025
It’s a frayed fabric of a story that contains moments of daring artistry and beauty, but doesn’t always knit together into something satisfying and solid. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 1, 2025
Seyfried builds a powerful force around Ann’s convictions, but there’s too little intimate knowledge of this historically significant woman to convey much beyond her zeal. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 15, 2026
An undeniably novel film that nevertheless lost its novelty for me around the time the Shakers washed up on American shores (that’s about an hour in?), The Testament of Ann Lee still had me in its grip every time a musical number rolled around, which is often enough. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineAlexander MooneySep 14, 2025
Mona Fastvold’s protean fable is tremulous, tricky, and intrepid, much like its pious protagonist. Read full review
60
IONCINEMA.comNicholas BellJan 2, 2026
Ultimately, The Testament of Ann Lee feels like Willa Cather’s version of The Witch (2015). Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 1, 2025
This is a genuinely strange film, elusive in both tone and meaning, one which deploys the obvious effects and rhetorical forms of irony, while at the same time distancing itself from these effects and asking its audience to sympathise and even admire Lee, because she is not supposed to be the villain. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonJan 15, 2026
Once again, Fastvold and Corbet have crafted a movie I admired more than I liked. Read full review
40
Radio TimesJames MottramDec 4, 2025
Devised by Brutalist composer Daniel Blumberg, the songs are spirited, and Mamma Mia! star Seyfried invests fully. But with characters often reduced to making declamatory statements, it becomes an increasingly vexing exercise. Read full review
40
The TimesKevin MaherSep 6, 2025
The film, alas, and it pains me to say it, is not very good. It’s overwhelmingly, unfortunately, self-serious, and thus accidentally very Monty Python. There’s little dramatic tension and the music is close to agony. Read full review
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