Vincere
IFC Films | Release Date: March 19, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyJay Weissberg
It's a thrilling, at times brilliant piece of staging that never forgets the emotional pull of either the tragic personal tale or the ramifications of history. Read full review
100
Village VoiceRob Nelson
Vincere, though, is the veteran director's stylistic knockout, a movie whose audacious editing fully captures the hot and heavy relationships between past and present, sex and politics, reality and, yes, cinema. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
An amazing, galvanic experience. It's about the hushed-up story of Benito Mussolini's first wife and child, but no one will ever mistake this movie for a standard biopic. It's too raw, too primal. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Setting aside, just for a moment, his general loathsomeness, there is a case to be made for a less apparent aspect of Benito Mussolini: He was once really hot. Read full review
95
NPRElla Taylor
Vincere, which comes as close to grand opera as can be achieved without anyone actually bursting into song, feels like a big movie -- handsomely mounted, full of dark shadows counterpointed with stray shafts of light, with dramatic close-ups of faces driven by passion and madness and heavy silences brutally interrupted by clashing tympani. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Mezzogiorno (Love in the Time of Cholera) plays Dalser with the kind of fervent intensity once seen in silent films. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
A sustained, alternatingly exhausting and aesthetically exhilarating howl of a film. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The movie, a near-masterpiece, is a monument to intoxication: of sexual conquest, of military conquest, and, most of all, of cinema. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Well, if you care about movies, I'm telling you to carve out time for Vincere, a strange and powerful blend of historical fact and dreamlike imagination that captures both the charisma and the murderous madness of the young Benito Mussolini. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
A gripping presentation of a little-known true story and its historical lessons. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The film is beautifully well-mounted. The locations, the sets, the costumes, everything conspire to re-create the Rome of that time. It provides a counterpoint to the usual caricature of Mussolini. They say that behind every great man there stands a great woman. In Mussolini's case, his treatment of her was a rehearsal for how he would treat Italy. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A gorgeous operatic tale of obsession and madness. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Vincere, which translates as the battle cry "Win!" is like invisible ink on the ledger of war, a secret record of love and loss. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Vincere starts to run dry of stunning visual gambits and become redundant in its second hour, as the madhouse sequences dominate, but Bellocchio’s central premise retains its power and poignancy throughout. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterNatasha Senjanovic
The director also pulls career-high performances from Mezzogiorno and Timi that are, respectively, tragic and mesmerizing. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Bellocchio gets the opera-buffa and the carnival side of Italian Fascism, and parts of the movie are excruciatingly funny. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Almost as an afterthought to the ringingly true performances--and Marco Bellocchio’s unusually approachable direction--comes a deft analysis of fascism, likened to lovesickness, insanity and a gust of orchestral strings. It’s all of that and more, not to mention a lousy matchmaker. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Daniele Cipri's highly stylized lensing and Carlo Crivelli's bold score add to the movie's flamboyant aura. But then, the story of a bombastic dictator deserves a bombastic telling. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Vincere is Ida's story, but it says as much about fascist Italy and its ruler as it does about the central character. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
What this uncaring man is doing to her (Ida), he's about to do to a nation of 50 million people. And all of them will hate themselves in the morning. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
Though Ida's life would become a torturous hell spent locked away in an insane asylum, the legacy left by her letters has made for an intense and intriguing, if at times uneven, film with Italian director Marco Bellocchio wringing every drop of emotion out of his actors and his audience before it is over. Read full review
63
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
If you appreciate historical melodrama, you could do worse than Vincere. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineSteve Ramos
Forty-four years after his exciting debut feature "Fists in the Pocket," Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio continues his late-career renaissance with the passionate, beautifully crafted, period melodrama Vincere. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
There’s visual poetry here and haunted performances from Mezzogiorno and Timi -- who plays two roles, and is especially gripping as Dalser’s grown son. Read full review
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