"The Machinist" is a well-crafted psychological thriller about self-deception and tragedy, told against an eerie landscape of terrifying dislocation and isolation. This is one effed up horror movie.

| Original Score: FIVE STARS | Aug 4, 2024

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Mar 12, 2013

If Nine Inch Nails, Swans and Ministry ever loomed large in the landscape of your imagination, Anderson's gloomy aesthetic may exert a sour but lingering pull.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 24, 2011

Until now Bale's screen persona has been defined by a graceful athleticism; here his physicality is repellent, yet he carries the occasionally creaky plot of Scott Kosar's unsettling screenplay to a resonant finish.

| Oct 24, 2011

A brilliant, harrowing performance by Bale.

| Oct 24, 2011

It's not necessarily a fun or loveable picture, but it is interesting and entertaining.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 9, 2010

With time as a buffer, it's now easier to see The Machinist for what it is: a labyrinthine leap down the rabbit hole into a nightmarish wonderland.

| May 18, 2009

A brilliant psychological horror story, and excellent direction...

| Apr 29, 2009

Here, shorn of every ounce of body fat, Bale is laid open like an autopsy specimen, and he easily gives his best performance.

| Feb 27, 2009

Bale is superb as Trevor, able to not only convey the wasted person within, but to avoid making his physical appearance the only thing we care about or notice.

| Oct 18, 2008

Um angustiante pesadelo que, trazendo Bale numa performance corajosa e repleta de auto-sacrifício, funciona como um estudo poético sobre os extremos da culpa.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 15, 2008

Christian Bale starves himself to near-death proportions in this trippy, creepy film about insomnia in the workplace.

| Original Score: B- | Jun 21, 2007

full review in Greek

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 3, 2006

An intelligent, well-crafted picture.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 26, 2006

A few scenes into the gloom and you'll have a good idea what is generally up, if not the specifics, making the journey toward the eventual, inevitable twist fairly one-dimensional.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2006

One can't deny the dubious appeal of the spectacle of the skin-and-bone Bale, quite possibly endangering his health for the sake of his art.

| Feb 9, 2006

With The Machinist, Anderson delivers the goods: an intelligent, haunting psychological horror/thriller that I highly recommend.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 23, 2006

An absorbing and eerie study of paranoia and psychological torment.

| Original Score: 3.75/4 | Dec 29, 2005

Kosar has ... constructed an exercise in existentialism that is so literal it's a true feat that he was able to reign it all back in for the somewhat tidy ending of this film.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2005

It's like a film the Coen Brothers would have made, back when they still made good movies.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 22, 2005