Most are advised that watching the movie feels more like homework than entertainment.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 30, 2021

Welles may be best known for his 1941 film "Citizen Kane," but as far as I'm concerned, "Chimes at Midnight" is his magnum opus.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 18, 2020

...multiple dimensions of tragedy and devises a passionately vigorous repertory of images to embody it...

| Nov 21, 2020

...aside from that small tug on Superman's cape I have only grateful praise for this thing.

| Aug 14, 2020

[Chimes at Midnight] is a curiously mixed bag of a film in which defects often become virtues and difficult attempts succeed while easy ones fail.

| May 6, 2020

Chimes at Midnight is a unique achievement that few filmmakers have ever equaled.

| Nov 2, 2019

In this film, [Orson] Welles is bigger than life, literally and figuratively.

| Oct 16, 2019

One can feel Welles' energy and passion, but there is a sense of regret that hangs over Chimes at Midnight that is impossible to ignore, as if Falstaff has become a metaphor for Welles himself.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 4, 2019

The story, conceived in these terms, is "too easy." Fortunately, the film has several other stories to tell, mainly through its images.

| Mar 2, 2019

The film is wonderful and exasperating, the work of a genius, the reflections of an egotist, delicious utterances of great language and muddied speeches in other instances.

| Jan 17, 2019

one of Welles's greatest late-stage accomplishments-a very nearly magnificent amalgam of plot points, characters, and dialogue from not just one or two of the Bard's history plays, but five of them

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 19, 2018

It feels much more like an experimental film than it does a typical Shakespeare adaptations.

| Aug 14, 2018

Chimes at Midnight reflects the director's proclivity for out-of-step dreamers who prefer their lovely, useless fancies to cold, pragmatic practicalities.

| Aug 14, 2018

The bones are impressively strong and simple.

| Jul 13, 2018

"Chimes at Midnight," whose very title resounds with awareness of mortality, is stylistically a bleak and cold vision, with steam often visible on the actors' breath in the frigid air.

| Original Score: A+ | May 16, 2017

[Those expecting] a Citizen Kane 2.0 will be a little disappointed, but it's still a fantastic movie with beautiful black-and-white cinematography and a compelling performance from Welles.

| Feb 28, 2017

Well, now Janus Films has executed a wondrous restoration. It's a knockout. The story of Shakespeare's great Sir John Falstaff character is no longer a diamond the rough. It is simply a breathtaking diamond.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Nov 10, 2016

Criticized at the time of its release for its low budget, the film is actually enhanced by its down-and-dirty aura, and Welles' performance is nothing short of brilliant.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 17, 2016

Without question, Welles is the definitive Falstaff, puffed up with bluster, but achingly sensitive on the inside.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 19, 2016

A best-of approach that cuts to the soul of a figure whom Welles considered Shakespeare's greatest creation.

| Mar 9, 2016