IndieWire

Fiennes wisely stays out of his way here. Zizek is the star, edited down to digestible elements, with archival footage used adroitly to drive his arguments home.

IndieWire by David D'Arcy

Fiennes wisely stays out of his way here. Zizek is the star, edited down to digestible elements, with archival footage used adroitly to drive his arguments home.

Village Voice by Zachary Wigon

In essence, the film is a lecture, but Zizek's associative thinking and understanding of the applicability of psychoanalysis makes it a lecture like no other.

Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene

Slavoj Žižek manages to explain some of Lacanian psychoanalysis's most inscrutable notions with disarming clarity and infectious urgency.

Time Out

It’s exhilarating, even exhausting stuff, though Fiennes lightens the weight of Zizek’s dense discourse with a welcome scattering of sight gags. He’s a man to be taken seriously, but not averse to donning a nun’s habit — and for that we love him.

The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer

A riveting and often hilarious demonstration of the Slovenian philosopher’s uncanny ability to turn movies inside out and accepted notions on their head.

Time Out by Guy Lodge

It’s exhilarating, even exhausting stuff, though Fiennes lightens the weight of Zizek’s dense discourse with a welcome scattering of sight gags. He’s a man to be taken seriously, but not averse to donning a nun’s habit — and for that we love him.

RogerEbert.com

As for why the film is called "the pervert's" guide, this reviewer noted that its end credits do not acknowledge the many movies it draws upon so copiously. That, in terms of standard filmmaking etiquette, truly is perverse.

New York Post by Kyle Smith

To keep this one-man show visually engaging, director Sophie Fiennes places the professor in sets and costumes from the movies, talking about “Full Metal Jacket” from atop a barracks toilet and “Brief Encounter” from a 1940s British train.

RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire

As for why the film is called "the pervert's" guide, this reviewer noted that its end credits do not acknowledge the many movies it draws upon so copiously. That, in terms of standard filmmaking etiquette, truly is perverse.

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

The final questions in Pervert’s Guide to Ideology nag at us, and in a culture so built upon and so profiting by fantasies of Hollywood apocalypse, they deserve to.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey

In a series of mini-rants with insights that range from the ho-hum to the profound, the sixtysomething Žižek, paunchy, bearded and bobbing his hands like a squirrel’s paws, rummages through what he calls the trash can of ideology.

The New York Times by Nicolas Rapold

Mr. Zizek’s daisy-chained improvisations amount to an argument on behalf of complexity and unseen depths, and, like much academic writing, it risks monotony and becoming as reductive as it can be seductive.

The Dissolve by Noel Murray

Taken in the right spirit, The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology is a lot of fun, like watching a movie with a friend, then going out for drinks and talking late into the night. Just don’t expect to get a word in edgewise.

The Telegraph by David Gritten

There are those who find Žižek a delight; but well before the two-hour mark, one feels he has delighted us long enough.