The story is played like a litany or a medieval morality play. Shot after shot bears the hypnotic power of ceremony rather than drama.

| May 20, 2022

A superbly filmed Chinese saga set in forbiddingly beautiful country in and around Tibet.

| May 20, 2022

The film is slow and not above a certain ponderousness, but its visuals are so beautiful and its authenticity seems so thorough that one remains hooked from start to finish.

| May 20, 2022

Whatever else the movie means to signify, it’s memorable as a personal vision of a people whose hold on life is precarious and who sustain themselves with faith in an afterlife.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 20, 2022

Because dialogue is used so sparingly, the viewer is occasionally left wondering exactly what's happening, but the overall impression is of a rare and ancient world into which we've been granted privileged admittance.

| May 20, 2022

One of the most fiercely demanding and awesomely beautiful films you are ever likely to see.

| May 20, 2022

Anyone interested in the fate of contemporary Tibet or in the ancient and fascinating rituals of this remote culture would be well advised to see Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Horse Thief.

| May 20, 2022

The issues here are universal: how individual needs conflict with those of the tribe, how crime is punished, how the God-fearing sinner fears the prospect of a godless world even more than the prospect of the Almighty's wrath.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 20, 2022

Photographed as if the eye of God were in the camera's view-finder, The Horse Thief surveys Norbu's fated life with an exalted grace.

| May 20, 2022

It is film capable of transporting its audience into a world it has almost certainly never seen.

| May 20, 2022

Patience is needed... But patience is rewarded, too. If the film is economical with the action, it is positively sumptuous with the setting.

| May 20, 2022

It's difficult to recall the last time a film was able to convincingly portray a journey into a man's soul, while setting its story against so spectacular a series of panoramic vistas.

| May 20, 2022

It offers the most awesomely plausible account of Tibetan life and culture ever seen in the west. It's one of the few films whose images show you things you've never seen before.

| Feb 9, 2006

What little talk there is tends to be plain and to the point. However, from the scenic and ethnographic standpoints the film is often quite arresting.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2004

[It's] blessed with some of the most unbearably beautiful images of Nineties cinema.

| Oct 1, 2003

Director Tian Zhuangzhuang has said that he made The Horse Thief for the 21st century... The Horse Thief is a film of the future in more ways than one.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 1, 2000