The script is well-written, the director's eye is incredibly sharp, and the film's visuals are aesthetically moving.

| Feb 9, 2021

Employing a palette of simple yet elegant binary motifs - day/night, light/dark - Ergüven constructs her own powerful and distinct emotional language through a confident and captivating formal style.

| Aug 25, 2018

I won't tell you how it ends. I will say you should see for yourself.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 27, 2016

Ergven has delivered a debut for the ages, her film a chilling, emotionally shattering marvel I'm unlikely to forget anytime soon.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 16, 2016

There are so many remarkable things about this wonderful movie.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2016

Erguven has said the film was inspired from memories of her own childhood, and much of it certainly presents a seemingly authentic reality.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 24, 2016

Erguven has a naturalistic style and doesn't seem too concerned with flash or wizardry, preferring to let the story and characters take centre stage.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 21, 2016

Erguven is wisely determined to avoid any hint of melodrama.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 17, 2016

Even in its darker moments (death, domestic abuse, a humiliating hymeneal exam), Ergven contrives to make her subject-matter uplifting.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 19, 2016

A superbly acted study of suppression that's more intent on provocation than plausibility.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 19, 2016

With its rooted sense of place and community, and rebellious spirit, this is an accomplished and engaging debut.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 15, 2016

Mustang is incendiary and intimate, enraging and sweet.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2016

Raw, funny and incredibly moving.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 11, 2016

The giddy abandon of youthful pleasures are writ large across blissed-out faces and fast mouths. The story moves at speed, with Ergüven constantly resisting the temptation to pause and wring sentiment from a dramatic development.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 11, 2016

Deniz Gamze Ergven's brilliant, affecting Academy Award-nominated drama, loosely based on her own upbringing, initially resembles The Virgin Suicides only to swerve into nail-biting thriller terrain.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 23, 2016

The story isn't particularly original, but Mustang's achievement is to criticize a society that sexualizes everything women do while still celebrating the girls' sexuality.

| Feb 18, 2016

Ergven isn't peddling blind optimism so much as a realism animated by the belief that freedom-far from being inevitable-must be fought for. That it will be fought for.

| Jan 21, 2016

That there are five sisters allows Erguven to explore the scenario's several possible outcomes, be it happy ending or tragedy or the bittersweet fates in between.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 15, 2016

Ergven's film, beautifully shot and beautifully performed, cuts its storybook tone with starker, more brutal truths.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 15, 2016

Part of a welcome international wave of films made by women directors that focus on girls growing up in worlds of men - and on what they look like when no one's looking.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 14, 2016