...for anyone who’s not familiar with Mapplethorpe’s life and work, the film is a great introduction to this recent queer hero.

| Dec 7, 2022

Mapplethorpe is a compelling look at one of our nation’s most enduringly controversial provocateurs.

| Nov 1, 2022

exploring the psychology of one of the most challenging photographers in history makes for fairly interesting viewing, even if its execution is about as artistic as an Argos catalogue.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2021

Capturing the life and times of one Robert Mapplethorpe was always going to be recklessly ambitious. Perhaps even, impossible.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 30, 2021

Smith is a man possessed and he embraces both the charm and danger of his character so completely that you don't dare take your eyes off of him.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 20, 2020

We finally have a popular biopic that young LGBTQ people can sample, and embrace or reject based on their own views and needs.

| May 29, 2020

Another entry in the list of biopics (like Bohemian Rhapsody) that reduce the career of an iconoclast to a formulaic biopic that refuses to scratch beneath the surface.

| Mar 10, 2020

Even among the ranks of artist biopics, which are almost never as daring as their subjects, this film is timid.

| Feb 24, 2020

Sadly, it feels like a passive slide-show of a Wikipedia entry, albeit a beautiful one.

| Oct 2, 2019

It has dialogue that I would be embarrassed to put on the page.

| Sep 20, 2019

Smith is unforgettable as Mapplethorpe.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 19, 2019

[A] dry retelling of the artist's life with much of the passion kept at bay.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 4, 2019

...the film feels almost cowardly by the end...

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 22, 2019

How do you hew so close to biopic conventions -a dutiful recitation of this event happened, this fame arrived, that tragedy struck, etc - when you're dealing with an artist whose whole raison d'etre was finding beauty at the extreme edges of things?

| Original Score: 0/5 | Mar 22, 2019

Aren't biopics terrible?

| Mar 15, 2019

Matt Smith's portrayal of the mercurial, brooding genius is nearly as provocative as Robert Mapplethorpe's famous photograph 'Calla Lilly', elevating the film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 14, 2019

If the new biopic "Mapplethorpe" presents this transgressive vision is vivid detail - and it does - that's only because it includes so many of Mapplethorpe's pictures. Everything else in the film is timid and pedestrian.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 13, 2019

The acting is uneven, but the film almost captures how Mapplethorpe was a visionary artist and openly gay man at just the right moment in history.

| Original Score: B- | Mar 8, 2019

"Mapplethorpe" paints a dark, depressing picture of the tortured artist but does little to answer any questions about his motivations.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 8, 2019

In actor Smith's nicely paced and nuanced performance, Mapplethorpe is a selfish rebel redeemed, just barely, by his aesthetics.

| Mar 7, 2019