Despite the film being very much of its era, there is a strong sense that it exists in a world outside the constraints of time.

| Oct 10, 2024

The ways in which Anderson tries to illustrate the desire for freedom are so mechanical and carry so little conviction that I think one may conclude that the heroes are shooting because he needs to discharge his rage.

| Jul 6, 2022

Especially in its fantasy episodes, If... celebrates the emergence of subjectivity, feeling, expression and imagination that means so much to young people today.

| Jan 6, 2021

The is an acute sense of disappointment about If, not only over the great film Anderson failed to create, but also the lesser film he passed by.

| Jun 30, 2020

From its title on down, If ... is a movie about the power and peril of imagination, and the seductive thrill of wishing that we might externalize our inner lives for all to see and fear.

| Apr 6, 2020

If.... remains a relevant and visceral howl at the "Establishment".

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 20, 2020

If we can't read the writing on the wall, perhaps it was because the hand shook a little.

| Mar 20, 2020

This is the most interesting film so far this year.

| Mar 20, 2020

Malcolm McDowell gives a blistering performance in what is undoubtedly a key film in British cinema history.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 20, 2020

Given how readily the film slips from realism to surrealism and back, it's unwise to take the ending at face value, but the dream of laying waste to the social order remains potent.

| Original Score: A | Mar 20, 2020

For all its beauty and ingenuity, all we're left with is an ellipse.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Mar 20, 2020

[Its] potency is due to the way former documentarian Anderson manages to blend European surrealism into the film's near-documentary style, successfully highlighting the students' frustrations by setting their fantasies against cold-shower reality.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 20, 2020

Within a certain poetic realism, the story develops among beautiful stained glass windows, repellent bathroom sinks, dirty bedrooms, and religious chants. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Jul 22, 2019

The trouble starts when Anderson mixes the fantasies of his student-rebel heroes with the facts of life. The switch from realism to surrealism is a jolting one.

| Jul 10, 2019

What makes this part of the film so compelling is less its details, though much of that is striking, than its mood.

| Nov 16, 2018

Making his debut in the lead role, Malcolm McDowell displays the charisma he would bring to A Clockwork Orange...and the ending still packs a punch.

| Nov 16, 2018

Lindsay Anderson captured the fancy of a generation of British youth with If... (1968), his savage satire of the regimented British education system and bullying "public" schools.

| Aug 4, 2017

The late 60's film offers a direct and honest link into the world of conservative Britain that contemporary films can only try and simulate.

| Jul 17, 2015

[VIDEO ESSAY]...a bold commentary on the adverse effects of abusive regimented indoctrination techniques used by British boarding schools and military outfits alike.

| Original Score: A | Jan 18, 2012

If.... is more than a little dated, and some patches get pretty long, but it feels alive ... and that's important.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 27, 2011