It is refreshing to find a heavy-hitting European auteur telling his story with such directness, and delightful to see a serious, artistically exacting film for children, even if you suspect it will soar over that audience.

| Nov 13, 2017

In a quiet way, this gorgeous movies accomplishes many things.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 16, 2017

Bertolucci's celebrated burnt-orange-and-burnished-lemon look remains handsome, and the story itself still commands some interest as a pivot into daunting material.

| Dec 7, 2007

Bertolucci's epic is a disappointment.

| Jun 24, 2006

A crazily mesmerizing pop artifact that ranks alongside Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha in terms of extreme earnestness and quasi-religious entertainment value.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 30, 2004

Though uneven, the film is engagingly moving and often humorous.

| Jan 1, 2000

Some of the movie's mysteries are more unsuccessfully secular than rapturously eternal, but the doorway opens far enough to offer a few glimpses of nirvana.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 1, 2000

Little Buddha succeeds precisely because of its guileless innocence.

| Jan 1, 2000

The modern sequences lack realism or credibility. The ancient sequences play like the equivalent of a devout Bible story.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000

| Original Score: C+ | May 25, 1994