[Angelina Jolie's] performance – and the script and opulent camerawork (American cinematographer Edward Lachman) – are the strengths of this film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 31, 2025

Jolie’s is a wholly convincing performance... Whether she’s playing grand dames or action heroes, “don’t mess with me” is her default position, so Callas’ flair for melodrama is well served.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 31, 2025

It's the performance that matters here, and Angelina Jolie's performance is captivating.

| Jan 17, 2025

Angelina Jolie is very compelling as a diva burning her own flame, but she doesn't seem quite real... It doesn't seem as if we're getting the full person in this movie, and I think that's partly the fault of the director.

| Jan 17, 2025

Maria is a marvel to look at, unfolding in a Paris lit by pale September sun.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 15, 2025

The script is absolutely crammed full with toe curling one-liners.

| Jan 14, 2025

La Divina, Jolie-style, is as much a performance as a person – a diva who never encountered a rococo staircase she couldn’t imperiously sweep down.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 14, 2025

Being on first name terms with a person tends to imply intimacy, but in Larraín’s new film Maria, the Chilean director has no idea who his subject is.

| Jan 10, 2025

It’s hard to fathom what Larrain, and screenwriter Steven Knight, want to say about her. Or how we are meant to feel... The film never gets to the truth of her, or her art, which is why the singing doesn’t feel true, either.

| Jan 9, 2025

I found Jolie’s performance as luxurious as state-of-the-art fake fur, and there is an overt theatricality and artificiality which gives the film its life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2025

If this biopic piques a moviegoer’s interest in Maria Callas there are many ways to learn about her and listen to her glorious voice. Maria and Jolie’s persuasive performance may well light that fuse of curiosity.

| Dec 25, 2024

La Diva Eterna lives in Jolie, with a performance as towering as it is understated: sad and soulful and heartbreaking. She has never been better. Brava!

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 24, 2024

Callas makes for a fascinating figure, and Larraín clearly has a fondness for his subject, even as the script by Steven Knight fusses with her truth.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 13, 2024

Much would be forgiven if the sourness of “Maria” and its title goddess didn’t try one’s patience quite so cruelly.

| Dec 13, 2024

What we get here isn’t interesting, and it’s not told in an interesting way.

| Dec 12, 2024

Pablo Larraín’s latest biopic drowns in melodrama but dazzles with visuals, leaving Angelina Jolie to rescue what she can of Maria Callas’ legendary life.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 12, 2024

Even with all the sumptuous visuals, elaborate costumes and lush production elements, the film itself feels rather passionless, and that’s a problem given that it’s about a commanding opera star who led a passion-filled life.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 12, 2024

“Maria” has plenty of artistic ambition though flubs quite a few notes, a biopic that never soars like a Callas aria even with Jolie’s considerable talent giving it a lift.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 11, 2024

What should feel extremely human teeters on caricature. In no way is this Jolie’s fault. Larraín chose a solidly niche subject and appears to have overcorrected.

| Dec 11, 2024

Jolie is sometimes hard to cast, because she looks like an entity that doesn’t quite belong in normal life. But here that quality becomes an asset.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 7, 2024