Less hypnotic than Dead Man but infinitely more interesting than anything else he's done since, Limits of Control is more of an exercise in Jarmusch-ism.

| Apr 12, 2021

Only Jarmusch can get away with pretentious movie about art like this. Less hypnotic than Dead Man but infinitely more interesting than anything else he's done since, Limits of Control is more of an exercise in Jarmusch-ism.

| Mar 24, 2021

What begins as an exercise in existentialism and surrealism graduates into the amateurish experiment of a hitman procedural.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Nov 29, 2020

Some will find [Jarmusch's] excavation intriguing. The rest of us may long for the enticements of meaningful dialogue, character, and story, and a compelling film hero to make it all feel worthwhile.

| Jan 27, 2020

This is not a genre exercise that subverts all expectations. It is a genre exercise that strips out everything that makes it compelling.

| Jan 24, 2020

The visual and the aural are what make this film such a delight to watch, as Mr. Jarmusch is a metafilmmaker who delights in subverting film's narrative conventions and genre expectations.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 7, 2018

Jim Jarmusch's nonchalant and precise Limits of Control moves through real landscapes in Spain, city and nowhere, his two favorite places.

| Apr 30, 2018

...a Zen gangster film, a mandala that scatters itself at the end. Its very quietude and uneventfulness force you into the moment every moment...

| Original Score: A | Mar 13, 2013

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Nothing more than Jarmusch's worst film since Night on Earth.

| Aug 26, 2011

Limits becomes a study of what happens when you remove all the things people like about spy movies, things like clever plotting, suspense, sex appeal.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 4, 2011

By surprising us with repetitions, Jarmusch suggests that we shouldn't take these events as literal, traditional storytelling. This is play -- serious play.

| Original Score: 8/10 | May 7, 2010

Offers an astonishingly sensuous experience

| Feb 28, 2010

It's beautifully wrapped in art, philosophical musings, mystery and film lore.

| Original Score: A- | Jan 12, 2010

Cool, handsome, self-assured... but, as the existentialists might say, what's the bloody point?

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 11, 2009

A work of dazzling formal discipline that riffs on the simple notion of repetition and variation.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 11, 2009

It's a film, Jim, but not as we know it: a meandering bad trip through a gorgeously shot Spain that's really only accessible to tenacious Jarmusch enthusiasts.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 11, 2009

It's bold, confrontational cinema that will, as its author intended, have you questioning at every turn just what it is you expect from a modern movie, and more importantly, why.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 11, 2009

This shallow conundrum is at once a dull thriller and a humourless comedy, the sort of colossally self-indulgent and boring film that only a successful and revered director could make - or be allowed to make.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 11, 2009

If you need a working definition for bad Jarmusch, look no further than The Limits of Control, which functions more as a wilful act of self-pleasuring than worthwhile experiment.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 11, 2009