De Palma pours some of his aesthetic adjustments on it, but unfortunately its narrative often loses track of police intrigue and remains situated in common places in its uchronia about The Black Dahlia's nefarious murder case. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 17, 2024

Until it derails while heading into its final turn, The Black Dahlia represents Brian De Palma's most assured moviemaking in at least a decade.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 13, 2023

De Palma has managed to turn a two-hour movie about a substantial, significant, unusually gruesome real-life mystery into something of a bore.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 15, 2020

A lover of not only film noir, but the grandeur and grotesqueness of early Hollywood and Los Angeles, the only thing given to me by the THE BLACK DAHLIA is a black hole of disappointment. I think it's time to revisit the novel.

| Nov 7, 2019

If Ed Wood ever made a film noir picture, this is what it would look like.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 6, 2019

Propped up by De Palma's usual immaculate eye for period detail and feel for genuine suspense, The Black Dahlia still manages to underline De Palma's many lazy and flabby foibles as a director.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 3, 2018

This movie isn't more than 10 minutes old when that question pales next to these: How can you make a movie this bad with a double Oscar winner (Swank)? How can you use Scarlett Johansson so stupidly?

| Original Score: 1/4 | Apr 3, 2018

Most of us come to the shadows of modern noirs to be swept up in the guilt and intrigue, not to be abandoned in the thick of nonsense.

| Original Score: 0.5/4 | Sep 12, 2017

The Black Dahlia doesn't solve the eternal De Palma dilemma, but it sure does fascinate.

| Feb 17, 2014

Visual marvel after visual marvel

| Aug 30, 2009

DePalma is like a magician who dazzles us with a trick only to show us, alas, it really was only a trick, and in the meantime he's stolen our watch.

| Apr 26, 2008

You've barely time to soak up one revelation before another one is dumped on you from a great height.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 7, 2007

Won't do much to dissuade the common rap against De Palma as a cold technician who takes projects just for the elaborate set pieces they provide him.

| Original Score: D | Jul 23, 2007

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 14, 2007

With skeletons flying out of the closet at every turn, this overplotted mess unfolds more like a dumb, daytime soap opera than a well-crafted crime thriller.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Apr 27, 2007

You have to wonder just how vibrant the film would have been during the Reagan or Clinton administration, when De Palma was in his prime.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

A stellar cast of marquee names, coupled with an all-star crew, can't make this entry work.

| Mar 1, 2007

... ends up being forgettable enough that someone else in the future may still be able to take another stab at the idea.

| Original Score: 1.0/4.0 | Jan 28, 2007

I can't say anything really stood out in a positive way.

| Dec 30, 2006

Filled with atmosphere and attitude to spare, "The Black Dahlia" is film noir at it's finest.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 13, 2006