In 1997, Roger Ebert named it the best film of the year. In 2018, the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry...and yet the film, which made back its cost nearly five times over, received zero Oscar nominations. Go figure.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 16, 2024

Twenty-five years ago, Kasi Lemmons made her feature directorial debut with Eve’s Bayou, a steamy family drama as steeped in hidden dangers as its 1960s rural Louisiana setting, starring a who’s who of Black cinema.

| Jul 28, 2024

Eve’s Bayou tells a painful story that is hard to recover from, especially for the family it impacted. Kasi Lemmons conceived, formulated, and accomplished a special film that would not be forgotten.

| Feb 28, 2024

both complex and engaging, drawing us into the smoldering, simmering world of the Batiste family and their twisted dynamics without turning them into Gothic grotesquerie

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 27, 2023

Mixing in Creole voodoo adds karma and revelation to dark secrets beyond infidelity, making such a stirring film with Samuel L. Jackson as the father...

| Feb 14, 2023

Lemmons also does a stunning job of relaying a memory to us. She places the characters right back into the scene playing in their mind's eye. They narrate it as they witness it, blow by blow. But as we see, things aren't always what they appear to be.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 10, 2023

[Lemmons's] creativity and the breadth of her vision more than make up for her occasional missteps, luring us into a family album of secrets and lies that keeps the audience groping along with this fine ensemble cast for the truths buried in murky waters.

| Jan 10, 2023

An astonishingly accomplished first feature by Kasi Lemmons, this poetic and achingly perceptive film deserves a place on any number of year-end "best" lists.

| Original Score: A | Jan 10, 2023

The expressivity of the filmmaking doesn't quite measure up to the ideas and feelings that inspired Eve's Bavott. That said, this is still a wonderfully talented and intelligent film.

| Jan 10, 2023

The visually sumptuous and morally ambiguous Eve's Bayou possesses a strong sense of time and place, and makes for an auspicious first effort by actress-turned-writer/director Kasi Lemmons.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 10, 2023

Actress Kasi Lemmons makes a self-assured directorial debut that illuminates the joys, hurts and mysteries of a girlhood set under the moss canopy of the Louisiana bayou. Newcomer Jurnee Smollett as Eve is the prize of the movie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 10, 2023

First-time director (and veteran actress) Kasi Lemmons captures shimmering images that project a kaleidoscope mastery of shifting, intricate moods, but it is her stunningly self-assured screenplay that represents an even more significant achievement.

| Jan 10, 2023

One of Lemmons' smartest moves as a screenwriter is the avoidance of easy dramatic twists to propel the story. Eve's Bayou is foremost an unfolding multicharacter study, even if a character has only has a handful of screen minutes.

| Original Score: A | Jan 10, 2023

Kasi Lemmons has a strong visual sense and an almost surreal sensibility about the hot summer enigmas of the past. She also gets fine performances from everyone, especially the reliable Jackson and Whitfield.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 10, 2023

Writer-director Kasi Lemmons works fast, and the world she conjures is powerfully realized.

| Jan 10, 2023

A powerful, highly atmospheric drama of family secrets.

| Jan 10, 2023

Beyond its compelling family dynamics, Eve's Bayou resonates with close encounters of the physical and metaphysical kind.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 10, 2023

Shame on you if you opt for any other movie when you visit your video store.

| Jan 10, 2023

Firmly anchored by confident movie-star performances by Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield and Diahann Carroll, this vivid portrait of an early-1960s African-American family is one of the most impressive ensemble pieces of the season.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 10, 2023

The movie doesn't fall apart; far from it, but it does become overwrought. And yet, the film's major players are worth the effort.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 10, 2023