Washington Post by Maia Silber

Oldroyd’s brilliance (and Pugh’s) is to probe this age-old archetype — the Gothic antiheroine, the adulteress — and find pathos and cruelty. It’s also to uncover the complex web of hierarchies — of race and class, as well as gender — that ensnare and empower her.

The Telegraph by Tim Robey

Pugh is mesmerising.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

Cleverly, it gives us enigmatic backstory hints that may or may not help explain the sudden direction change the film takes in its third act, leading to a denouement of toxic ingenuity. And of all it driven by the sensuality and rage of Pugh’s performance.

The Film Stage by Jordan Ruimy

Oldroyd captures our gaze with every frame and doesn’t balk at the story’s more shocking sections. He means to shake us and does.

Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney

Superbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd.

Variety by Guy Lodge

An impressively stark, narratively ruthless Victorian chamber piece that feels about as modern as its crinolines will permit, William Oldroyd’s pristine debut feature slowly reveals a violent moral ambiguity that needles the mind far longer than its polite period-piece trappings suggest.

Screen International by Jonathan Romney

Superbly acted and executed, this spare piece of storytelling marks an assertive feature debut for theatre and opera director William Oldroyd.

Vox by Alissa Wilkinson

If you can adjust to the idea that you’re not meant to sympathize with anyone, Lady Macbeth is quite a film.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Calvin Wilson

A rebuke to the genteel period costume dramas that have long reigned as arthouse staples. Working from a screenplay by Alice Birch, director William Oldroyd turns the genre on its head, penetrating the pretty exteriors that conceal wild and dangerous emotions.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips

Throughout Lady Macbeth we see Pugh's eyes, full of possibility and optimism at the outset, gradually darken. Even her breathing changes. It's a wonderful performance in a very fine film.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

Even when Oldroyd loses his directorial grip, Pugh is there to make things right. Not many young actress have that sort of power to command the screen as if by divine right. She dives deep into this terrifically twisted, erotic thriller and makes it matter.

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

With no score and zero levity, Lady Macbeth maintains a constant atmospheric dread. Oldroyd crafts a masterful sense of uncertainty about how far Katherine will go to preserve her dominance.

Time Out London by Cath Clarke

Newcomer Florence Pugh is like a lightning bolt, totally electric as Katherine, who’s up there with Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina in the literary heroine stakes.

Empire by David Parkinson

This intelligently scripted and imposingly played costume noir revisits the conventions of Victorian melodrama to comment on modern attitudes to oppression, prejudice and morality.

We Got This Covered

Lady Macbeth begins as a biting tale of female empowerment but slowly reveals itself to be something much crueler. Period pieces rarely feel this contemporary.

The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton

Lady Macbeth mostly operates within established period conventions, but draws fresh blood from antique material thanks to a sparky cast, subtle nods to contemporary race and gender issues, and a hefty shot of gothic melodrama.

The Playlist by Bradley Warren

Underneath the dark humor and holistic mise en scène, there remains the nagging suspicion that what is onscreen is — in spite of the film’s best intentions — another patriarchal interpretation of Lady Macbeth.

Slant Magazine by Sam C. Mac

It isn't until its final moments that Lady Macbeth turns into the kind of meaningless, mean-spirited, and proudly irredeemable non-character study that likens it to, say, last year's emptily foreboding Childhood of a Leader.