The Playlist by Marya E. Gates

Laurent’s portrait of women pushed to the edge of society, exploited, and tortured for the sake of progress is uncompromising and fearless.

RogerEbert.com by Sheila O'Malley

The Mad Women's Ball is part psychodrama and part melodrama, and it wears those mantles proudly and confidently. Each scene throbs with urgency and emotion. Nothing is unimportant. At the same time, the film is highly controlled, with a taut assured script.

Screen Daily by Wendy Ide

The latest picture from Melanie Laurent is a strikingly beautiful production which delves deep into the ugliness at the roots of psychiatric medicine.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

Contrived and possibly overheated though the film might be at times, there is real storytelling gusto to it, and Laurent punches it across with relish.

Film Threat by Alex Saveliev

The Mad Women’s Ball avoids caricature or stereotype, though the grounds it walks may seem somewhat familiar. Laurent treads them with skill and passion, immersing us into a period wildly different and dishearteningly similar to ours.

The Irish Times by Tara Brady

The director and star deftly juggles social commentary, genre tension, spookiness and some fabulous period costumes (courtesy of designer Maïra Ramedhan Levi).

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Sarah-Tai Black

Laurent is determined in mapping the depiction of the patriarchal violence endured under both the supposition of scientific method as well as the social order of the world outside of the institution; however, the film struggles to keep a similar pace and substance within its story world.

The Film Stage by Christopher Schobert

The Mad Women’s Ball represents a noteworthy achievement for Laurent—a tremendously compelling, emotionally shattering period piece bearing at least three mighty performances from de Laâge, de Dietrich, and herself.

TheWrap by Alonso Duralde

What some might find dramatically unsatisfying about the film’s climax directly comments on the inequities of the era and the limited options offered to women, and there’s no shortage of rich storytelling, acting, and visual potency leading up to it.

The New York Times by Lisa Kennedy

Laurent has made an elegant if overheated melodrama that amplifies the villainy of Charcot and his colleagues (one proves particularly appalling) to underscore how male-centered the medical establishment was — and is.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

The Mad Women’s Ball capably sells the fact that Salpêtrière was a naked reflection of the institutional sexism that existed outside its walls, but Laurent’s eagerness to confront the barbarism of Charcot’s hospital tends to stifle the finer details of a story that hinges on female empowerment.

Slant Magazine by Steven Scaife

The film capsizes in the absence of a compelling center for Mélanie Laurent to hang her directorial panache.