The New York Times by A.O. Scott

Shot in richly toned, wide-screen black and white, Aferim! looks like an elegant exercise in period playacting. But it casts a fierce, revisionist eye on the past, finding the cruelty and prejudice that lie beneath the pageantry.

The Playlist by Jessica Kiang

The current of informed anger, directed at those who stand by while injustice and bigotry flourish, is unmistakable and turns the whole film into a kind of clever folk fable-cum-protest song.

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

Aferim! amounts to a serious endeavor designed to explore many facets of its era through the lens of people trapped in it. Their crude dialogue, real as it may be, hints at comedic possibilities while offering a shrewd look at people defined by their circumstances.

Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden

Aferim! conjures a world in flux. From the ironic "Bravo!" of its title to its Chekhovian final moment after an episode of terrible brutality, Jude's film connects that world, unforgettably, to our own.

Village Voice by Michael Atkinson

Quite possibly the only film ever made focused on the centuries-long enslavement of the Romani in Eastern Europe, Aferim! plays like a sleight of hand, amusing us at a distance with vulgarisms and entrancing us with countryside while the bloody work of civilization grinds on out of the corner of our eye.

Variety by Jay Weissberg

While its tone is occasionally overly strident, Aferim! is an exceptional, deeply intelligent gaze into a key historical period, done with wit as well as anger.

The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton

Do not be fooled by the playful, irreverent tone. Behind its attractive surface sheen of lusty humor and ravishing visuals, this Trojan Horse drama makes some spiky topical points about the lingering scars of slavery, feudalism, misogyny and racism.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

The movie establishes a quality of history by filming in black and white and shooting from a distance, so as to emphasize the broad picture.

Slant Magazine by Jesse Cataldo

The film's black humor is inextricably tied to serious questions about moral relativism and personal responsibility.

The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo

To the extent that the film has an emotional journey, it’s the story of this man’s very, very slight moral awakening, which achieves nothing whatsoever and doesn’t necessarily look as if it’s going to stick.