Add two tantalizing performances from Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel, and you have yourself one of the most romantic, beautiful films of the decade...

Full Review | Apr 4, 2024

The film links several interesting themes: the role of women artists at that time, lesbianism, abortion, social canons and their hypocrisy. There are at least two aspects of the women painters that are well and correspond to historical facts.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 28, 2023

Watching the two women grow closer together is almost intoxicating, even with the devastating knowledge that they’ll never truly be able to have what they want.

Full Review | Oct 23, 2023

Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is a triumph. Few romance movies capture the totality of love, loss, and remembrance in the way Sciamma does in this film.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

In contrast to a film like 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Color, there is no exploitative nudity, no male gaze or overt sexuality. And yet there’s rarely a moment that’s not subtly charged with eroticism.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2023

Things kick off simply, if not innocently, in Céline Sciamma’s masterful period film.

Full Review | Jun 21, 2023

Every artist begins with a blank canvas. It is what they do with it that defines them. With Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Céline Sciamma has painted her masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 11, 2022

The period piece is a mesmerizing story about desire and heartbreak, and one of the best queer films of the year.

Full Review | Oct 12, 2022

This intelligent and sensuous film is special. An intimate and delicate study of how two people can fall in love.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Every shot feels as if it was painted on a canvas. Love and romance are not the same thing, and it is subtly shown in this movie that surrounds the lack of freedom there is in secrets. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 23, 2022

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire is passionate, elegant, and elemental.

Full Review | May 20, 2022

An abortion subplot allows for a scene of artistically inspired exploitation that breaks the film.

Full Review | Original Score: TWO STARS | Apr 25, 2022

It's a film that acknowledges the limits of reality even as Sciamma finds overriding freedom in her characters yearnings, making, as one character observes, not the lover's choice, but the poet's in telling this story.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 21, 2022

The plot reveals itself with an assured poetic tone that never falters. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 8, 2021

What works comes less from the script and more from the presence and power of the two beautiful protagonists. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 26, 2021

...a sumptuous, haunting love story with moments of dynamism...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 21, 2021

Once in a while there is a work of art so specific, so complex, so new in its oldness and old in its newness, that it moves the craft, our craft, to another level of seeing.

Full Review | Sep 10, 2021

While it says much about the female gaze - both as painter and painted, watcher and watched - that doesn't stop it from sagging in its final act.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2021

[A] deconstruction of the male gaze, bringing forth a new lens through which to view women's agency and historic contributions to art... wrapped in a gentle yet painful love story.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 16, 2021

Unfolds as a liquid painting, shades of honey, earth, and time, with a soundtrack burning off all that is unnecessary.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 31, 2021