Ida is not only an evocation of early '60s Poland, the period of Pawlikowski's childhood, but a film that gives the illusion that it could have been made then.

| Dec 31, 2015

Now that Paweł Pawlikowski's haunting Polish film has been nominated for a foreign-language Oscar, Ida is back in the conversation. Let yourself be enveloped by a modern cinema classic.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 6, 2015

Nestled within its sins-of-the-elders narrative is a faintly charming cross-generational bonding picture, pairing a worldly cynic with a young girl taking her last gasp of secular air before giving her life to the Lord.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 5, 2015

Trzebuchowska is certainly the film's other great asset: all the performances are great, but she is not even an actress, having been spotted by a producer in a cafe and hired almost on the spot. You'd never believe it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 5, 2015

Pawlikowski has a photographer's eye for composition, and every crisp, monochrome frame could be a postcard from Poland's tragic, turbulent past.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 5, 2015

With her brassy, determined aunt, Ida sets off to find answers and discovers life beyond the convent walls in this leisurely but satisfying journey.

| Original Score: B | Jan 5, 2015

Don't adjust your set: the film is (strikingly) photographed in Bergman-esque shades of gray-and-white.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 5, 2015

Pawlikowski is intelligent, sensitive to mood and willing to defy fashion -- and this last quality, in particular, is rare enough to be worth valuing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 5, 2015

This frugal, static film in black and white is wondrous with life and drama. First-time actress Agata Trzebuchowska has a face you could watch forever.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 5, 2015

There is not a frame in this austere spiritual journey that isn't a thing of heartfelt beauty.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 6, 2014

Ida is haunting and devastatingly beautiful; perhaps my favorite film to come out so far this year, foreign language and otherwise.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 22, 2014

For all its sombre subject matter, there is warmth here too; personal, musical, spiritual.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 28, 2014

"A comeback marked by crystalline conviction ... suffused with the ache of loss but streaked with hope and humour."

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 28, 2014

Ida juxtaposes socialism and religion, repression and liberation, while mining the grey spaces in between.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 26, 2014

One of its wonders is that, in spite of its grim underlying themes, Ida has the lightness, grace, humour and visual inventiveness of the New Wave movies of the Sixties to which it pays such obvious homage.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 26, 2014

Set in an austere, almost abandoned Poland during the early 1960s, director Pawel Pawlikowski's first feature made in his homeland is a spare, haunting piece of minimalism.

| Sep 26, 2014

A bracing and powerful drama about cultural roots and the nature of identity from director Pawel Pawlikowski.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 25, 2014

Pawlikowski has a photographer's eye for composition, and every crisp, monochrome frame could be a postcard from Poland's tragic, turbulent past.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 25, 2014

Look at Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, and have your eyes opened to what rich glories a monochrome palette can achieve.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 25, 2014

Consider "Ida" the first offering in a summer celebrating Polish cinema and the latest masterpiece in a powerful tradition.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 27, 2014