Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Cast
Sean Connery,
F. Murray Abraham,
Christian Slater,
Helmut Qualtinger,
Elya Baskin,
Michael Lonsdale
Genre
Drama
At an abbey in 14th-century Italy, a monk is dead. Well-regarded Franciscan monk William of Baskerville begins investigating the mysterious murder with the help of his young novice. But fear rises in the abbey as monks continue to lose their lives with no culprit in sight.
Miami Herald by Bill Cosford
Ribald, wry and even, from time to time, suspenseful, The Name of the Rose is actually a movie-movie -- rich in Hollywood convention, dense with images, with muscular performances (the principals play their types to the maximum), with good, old- fashioned movie stuff. Never a dull moment. How very unlikely. [24 Oct 1986, p.D1]
Entertainment Weekly by Chris Nashawaty
The film’s packed with messages in invisible ink, secret staircases, and corpses in cauldrons of pig’s blood. And since ? Connery’s bald as a cue ball, that means no distracting Hanksian haircuts!
Newsweek by David Ansen
The Name of the Rose spins a whopping good tale, a medieval murder mystery that only those with seriously damaged attention spans will find hard to enjoy. [29 Sept 1986, p.63]
TV Guide Magazine
A little slow-moving but ultimately rewarding.
TV Guide Magazine
A little slow-moving but ultimately rewarding.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
What this movie needs is a clear, spare, logical screenplay. It's all inspiration and no discipline.
Los Angeles Times by Sheila Benson
Yes, it is splendid that anyone would take on so formidable a project as Eco’s 500-page chambered nautilus of a novel. Yes, this certainly feels like a 14th-Century Italian abbey, bleak, drafty and forbidding. Yes, it looks like it too--the 14th-Century as cast by Federico Fellini, every face a grotesque. But no, sad to say, it isn’t a perfectly marvelous film.
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
The movie is full of the kind of atmosphere that can be created by elaborate sets, dim lighting and misty landscapes, though it has no singular character or dominant mood.
The Associated Press
Whether these Hollywood touches will make the film appealing to the Rambo crowd is doubtful. By all means, read the book first. [24 Sept 1986]
The Associated Press by Robert Barr
Whether these Hollywood touches will make the film appealing to the Rambo crowd is doubtful. By all means, read the book first. [24 Sept 1986]
Chicago Tribune by Dave Kehr
No matter how you look at it, "The Name of the Rose" is a film best summarized by lists. It's a collection of elements, some well chosen and some less so, that never comes together into a coherent whole. For everything the movie has--which is, by and large, the best that money can buy--it doesn't have a director, someone who can take all the pieces and put them together into a vision. [24 Oct 1986, p.AC]
Washington Post by Rita Kempley
It's a richly appointed production that's hard to take seriously since the monks all look vaguely like Marty Feldman.
Washington Post by Paul Attanasio
If the style of the film matches the story, that doesn't make it any easier to look at -- it's just too bleak, and in the end, you'd rather see "Ivanhoe." Annaud never finds the right rhythm for the movie, and it's sluggishly paced, even as palimpsests go.
Chicago Reader by Pat Graham
You want misery? he gives you misery—dark, drear, suppurating medieval oppressiveness; monotony? he gives you that too, lots and lots of monotony; subhuman grotesquerie and primitive superstition? not to worry: this guy didn't direct Quest for Fire for nothing.
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