Like its predecessor, this film Will be praised and criticized, but few will be able to deny at it is exceptional entertainment.

| Jan 16, 2024

It is an inadvertently compromising title to put on a film that actually is nothing but an imitation of life and a bad one at that.

| Nov 28, 2023

Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959) is a wonderful example of how camp can function as critique.

| Apr 11, 2023

Lana Turner is great at embodying all of these conflicting parts of [Lora]... It helps when Sirk and his DP Russell Metty know how to light her and use lighting and composition to accentuate her performance.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 31, 2023

Melodrama with lasting, emotional heft...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 29, 2023

Maximizes Old Hollywood glamor to reveal the gangrenous rot just below the surface of America’s postwar prosperity, a reminder that the nation’s newfound self-image was erected on hate and denial that threatens to swallow everything in a sinkhole.

| May 19, 2022

This edition of Imitation of Life should do as much for Miss Kohner as did the original movie for Miss Colbert in 1934.

| Jun 22, 2020

This type of film fare may have been entertaining a quarter of a century ago. but the re-hash in fancy dress is just a lot of tripe.

| Dec 6, 2019

Sirk unleashed a melodramatic torrent of rage at the corrupt core of American life-the unholy trinity of racism, commercialism, and puritanism.

| Nov 16, 2015

The toughest-minded, most irresolvable movie ever made about race in this country.

| Mar 31, 2015

Imitation of Life is still a potent onion. When passed before the moviegoer's eyes, it may force theater owners to install aisle scuppers to drain off the tears.

| May 20, 2011

You'll be horrified at how this hokum manipulates you, but the best strategy is to just surrender and enjoy it.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 20, 2011

A consummate display of populist weepie-making.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 20, 2011

[VIDEO] Set in postwar New York, "Imitation of Life" is a wonderfully deceptive film.

| Original Score: A+ | Apr 29, 2011

What [the characters] need most from their maker is something he couldn't have given them at the time: the 1960s.

| Aug 20, 2009

While this device lends more scope, it also results in the overdone busy actress/neglected daughter conflict.

| Mar 19, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 14, 2007

This modernized remake of Miss Hurst's frankly lachrymose tale is much the same as its soggy predecessor. It is the most shameless tear-jerker in a couple of years.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 25, 2006

Forget those who decry the '50s Hollywood melodrama; it is through the conventions of that hyper-emotional genre that Sirk is able to make such a devastatingly embittered and pessimistic movie.

| Feb 9, 2006

Glossy soaper ahead of its racially themed time.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 25, 2005