100
It's a superb cinematic work and an appropriately serious one, given its subject matter and its intentions.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
A hard film to love, but a hypnotic meditation on all the elements -- gossip, religion, bullying -- that can turn a parish and country bad.
30
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
Chill to the core, Haneke presents human cruelty not to make us empathize with the victims or understand the oppressors but to rub our noses in the crimes of our species. He thinks he’s held on to the subversive ideals of punk, but all I smell is skunk.
100
Detailed yet oblique, leisurely but compelling, perfectly cast and irreproachably acted, the movie has a seductively novelistic texture complete with a less-than-omniscient narrator.
60
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
Haneke's superb cast provide beautifully measured hints at the disconnect between the ribbon's symbolism and the entire town's unspoken atrocities.
80
The White Ribbon comes dangerously--wonderfully?--close to playing like an evil-kid flick.
88
The White Ribbon is one of the finest films that ever repelled me, a holiday in the abyss.
88
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
This haunting film never pushes itself on you. It trusts you to suss out the horror that lies beneath the veneer of innocence. You'll be knocked for a loop.
100
A kind of mashup of "Our Town" and "Village of the Damned," the film is both draining and enthralling.
90
Immaculately crafted in beautiful black-and-white and entirely absorbing through its longish running time, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon nonetheless proves a difficult film to entirely embrace.
On the edge of my seat for this one!