All That Heaven Allows is a relatively simple story, characterization-wise, as most melodramas are, but it has a hook that most, if not all, viewers can latch on to.

| Feb 27, 2024

"All The Heaven Allows" is one of Douglas Sirk's grandest films, charting the forbidden romance of a middle class widow and society matron with her much younger gardener.

| Mar 12, 2022

The glorious gift of All That Heaven Allows is Sirk in top form, one of his shining examples of life's wicked parodies.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2020

Strongly slanted to ring the bell with soap-opera fans, but otherwise of limited appeal.

| Dec 3, 2019

As the camera gradually moves in on Cary's despairing face in reflection, we know the mantra of "life's parade at your fingertips" is really a mandate for her own imprisonment

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2019

Works as a straightforward melodrama, but is so meticulously crafted by a visual master that it provides endless material for those who wish to mine for deeper social commentary.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 3, 2014

Proof that there is artistry and glory in a genre that never had to apologise for itself, not when it was this confident, beautiful, and good.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jul 13, 2014

Sirk benefited immeasurably from the fact that the chief subject of his crazy cinema was postwar America.

| Aug 21, 2009

A classic and beautiful film for those who love romantic stories

| Oct 18, 2008

Romance novel in narrative this transcends its genre with visual depth and perceptive socio-cultural insights.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 16, 2007

One of Sirk's finest films.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 16, 2007

Hudson is handsome and somewhat wooden. Laconic of speech, and imbued with an angel's patience and understanding, it's at times hard to understand his passion for the widow, what with pretty girls just spoilingfor his attention.

| Oct 16, 2007

'Time, if anything, will vindicate Douglas Sirk,' wrote Andrew Sarris in 1968. He was right.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 26, 2006

Solid and sensible drama plainly had to give way to outright emotional bulldozing and a paving of easy clichs.

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

Beneath the stunningly lovely visuals -- all expressionist colours, reflections, and frames-within-frames, used to produce a precise symbolism -- lies a kernel of terrifying despair

| Feb 9, 2006

When Carey (Jane Wyman) first visits the Andersons, friends of Ron (Rock Hudson), Thoreau's Walden is placed on the table. She then reads a passage in which he describes the "mass of men living lives of quiet desperation," a summation of her life.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 7, 2006

A masterpiece (1955) by one of the most inventive and recondite directors ever to work in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk.

| Sep 4, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 20, 2004

Yet another mystifyingly lionized Sirkian soaper.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 7, 2004

Quite involving, overblown emotion and all, particularly due to Wyman's gentle sincerity.

| Jan 2, 2004