Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

A landmark musical movie -- controversial, mercurial, even cheeky. It's the kind of film that wildly divides audiences and critics -- people tend to either love or hate it. I loved it.

Newsweek by David Ansen

Luhrmann has raised the level of his game, deconstructing the Hollywood musical -- a genre all but left for dead -- and reassembling it with a potency that hasn’t been seen since “Cabaret.”

New Times (L.A.) by Gregory Weinkauf

This thing moves brilliantly, sparkling like nothing we've seen domestically since "The Wiz" or "Xanadu."

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

It's a wonderful postmodern hug of a movie, and never once do you not know you're watching a movie.

Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov

A crazed, lovestruck, wholly original (and yet amazingly referential) beast, part pop-culture wasteland, part glowing tribute, and part wild-eyed roller coaster (of love).

New York Daily News by Jack Mathews

An audacious, snappy visual and emotional feast of dishes both familiar and fresh. It's the first really good movie of 2001.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

The movie is all color and music, sound and motion, kinetic energy, broad strokes, operatic excess.

Salon by Stephanie Zacharek

It's a mishmash of decoration, drapery and debauchery that's both deeply pleasurable and kitschy.

Variety by Todd McCarthy

A tour de force of artifice, a dazzling pastiche of musical and visual elements at the service of a blatantly artificial story.

Time by Richard Corliss

The film dances; the heart sings.