Washington Post by Ann Hornaday

While Wright's self-conscious theatricality and dollhouse aesthetic conjure comparisons to Baz Luhrmann and Wes Anderson, he outstrips both those filmmakers in moral seriousness and maturity.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

Mr. Wright's Anna Karenina is different. It is risky and ambitious enough to count as an act of artistic hubris, and confident enough to triumph on its own slightly - wonderfully - crazy terms.

Boxoffice Magazine by David Ehrlich

The result is a masterpiece of moving pieces, a dizzying and obscenely beautiful film that boils down Tolstoy's text to its most basic elements by making literal the theater of high society.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

The story has been filmed many times, but never with this kind of erotic charge. Knightley is glorious, her eyes blazing with a carnal yearning that can turn vindictive at any perceived slight.

The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton

Both fascinatingly theatrical and thrillingly cinematic, a picture that's lingered on our minds more than we expected.

Portland Oregonian by Marc Mohan

Whatever the interpretation, Stoppard and Wright have demonstrated that Anna's saga has lost none of its power.

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

Wright's extraordinary long takes draw you into the universe of Anna Karenina with a seamless approach that a straightforward literary adaptation could never accomplish.

Time by Richard Corliss

Knightley embodies Anna as a girlish woman who has never felt erotic love; once smitten, she is raised to heavenly ecstasy before tumbling into the abyss of shame. It's a nervy performance, acutely attuned to the volcanic changes a naive creature must enjoy and endure on her first leap into mad passion. She helps make Anna Karenina an operatic romance worth singing about.

Empire

If it doesn't ultimately engage your heart as it might, Anna Karenina is period drama at its most exciting, intoxicating and modern. Spellbinding.

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

Does this crazy idea work? Maybe 70 percent of the time, but when it does it's both daring and brilliant.

Empire by Ian Freer

If it doesn't ultimately engage your heart as it might, Anna Karenina is period drama at its most exciting, intoxicating and modern. Spellbinding.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen

The results are generally refreshing. Much of the film takes place inside a theatre, as if to suggest the shenanigans of the Saint Petersburg aristocracy were a form of public entertainment.

Variety by Leslie Felperin

Setting most of the action in a mocked-up theater emphasizes the performance aspects of the characters' behavior, a strategy enhanced by lead thesp Keira Knightley's willingness to let her neurotic Anna appear less sympathetic than in previous incarnations.

Slant Magazine by Andrew Schenker

The film contains far more passion and a tad more complexity than the dominant and typically more staid model of middlebrow costume drama.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

The Wright/Stoppard Anna Karenina is not a total success, but it's a bold and creative response to the novel.

The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy

Dazzlingly designed and staged in a theatrical setting so as to suggest that the characters are enacting assigned roles in life, this tight and pacy telling of a 900 page-plus novel touches a number of its important bases but lacks emotional depth, moral resonance and the simple ability to allow its rich characters to experience and drink deeply of life.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

Every unhappy movie is unhappy in its own way, and Joe Wright's Anna Karenina is as boldly original a miscalculation as any you're likely to see.

Total Film by Neil Smith

Pimped, primped and dressed to the nines, Joe Wright's Tols-toy story looks the business. Like a disappointing Christmas present, though, the pleasure quickly evaporates once you remove the shiny paper.