Paying tribute to Afro-Cuban jazz and imbued with the nostalgia for the past, this animation is as much about trials of love as it is about the passion for music.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 4, 2024

It's refreshing to see an animated film that isn't striving to appease only children or for a merchandising deal.

| Original Score: A | Aug 3, 2020

The lost world it conjures is so winning that many viewers will find it easy to forget the film's flaws.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 4, 2019

Despite being largely at odds with itself, when set against recent animation trends that typically centre around celebrity voice acting and cute animals, Chico and Rita is a breath of fresh air striving for originality.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 6, 2018

A powerful love story... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 17, 2018

It's been too long since we've seen a film so luscious that it practically whisks you away to another time, another place. The animated film (and Oscar nominee for best animated feature), Chico & Rita does just that.

| Sep 8, 2017

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jan 16, 2013

A vivid and musical illustration of the transportive powers of cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 13, 2012

Brash and jazzy and -- to use a word not often associated with animated feature films -- sexy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 9, 2012

When a place and its people are this stylish, we can't help but be drawn to them.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 6, 2012

It's hot and sweet and made with inspiration and cheek. And it is not your children's animated fare -- which, in this case, is a recommendation.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 29, 2012

The animation is inventive and eye-popping everywhere except where it most matters: the design of the characters.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 23, 2012

The images and the music -- and for that matter the story -- seem to belong together to create the vibrant whole of the film.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 21, 2012

The movie works better if you sink into its milieu, enjoying the jazzy color schemes, the fluid animation and, above all, a dynamite soundtrack.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 16, 2012

"Chico & Rita" is that rare thing, a cartoon for adults, with a bittersweet take on love and fate and a romantic's view of the night.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 16, 2012

A pure delight, a keenly affecting, visually ravishing tale.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 16, 2012

A perfectly agreeable exercise in musical nostalgia...undermined by clumsiness of execution.

| Original Score: C | Mar 15, 2012

The film's design and animation... are so sublimely appealling that the story gets to be an afterthought; or, at least, the story doesn't actively ruin your day.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 12, 2012

A gorgeous, joyous, disarmingly nostalgic musical confection.

| Mar 12, 2012

A buttery rich animated tale of love, jazz, showbiz, fame and politics in the late '40s and early '50s that is as catchy as its tunes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 8, 2012