As the dynamics between these three people change and eventually alter the lives of all involved, Sachs depicts the pain and the pleasure of the messes we make when we blindly follow desire.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 18, 2024

The scene when Adèle Exarchopoulos sings to him is sensual and beautiful, with a sublime connection to Mia Hansen-Løve’s or Claire Denis’s cinema.

| Apr 17, 2024

In the end, whether you - or, for that matter Martin or Agathe - love or hate Tomas or not is irrelevant, Sachs suggests, as he’s the sort whose freewheeling momentum will carry him forward no matter what.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 16, 2024

I usually admire Sachs’ dramas at a distance, but this one got its hooks in me.

| Mar 18, 2024

Filled with affecting intimacy and some of the best (and essential) sex scenes in recent memory, Passages is one of Sachs’ absolute best films and further solidifies the exemplary status of the three lead performers.

| Original Score: 9.5/10 | Feb 29, 2024

Franz Rogowski’s central performance [is] beguiling.

| Feb 13, 2024

(Rogowski commands) every second of a movie that is itself powerful, painful, and complex.

| Feb 8, 2024

The miracle of Rogowski’s performance is that we sympathise with his plight as selfishness comes home to roost, while also finding comic delight as he scrambles to avert his downfall.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 7, 2024

Ira Sachs’ Passages is less interactive and more observational, looking squarely at the moments of transition in one’s life.

| Jan 19, 2024

An affair between a heterosexual woman and a homosexual (perhaps bisexual) man looks very shaky from the beginning and it leads a number of entirely predictable conflicts.

| Original Score: B | Jan 17, 2024

Both disarming and engaging...

| Jan 16, 2024

Passages boasts the most fascinatingly loathsome/compulsively watchable character in a film since Mike Leigh's Naked.

| Jan 5, 2024

Josée Deshaies’ cinematography uses ingenious framing and blocking techniques to emphasize the torrential emotional interiority of the characters in every scene.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 1, 2024

A passionate, exquisitely-performed film about a charismatic man and the people trapped in his orbit ... [and] a delightful example of characterization through costuming.

| Dec 31, 2023

Caustically amusing, sexy, sad and unflinchingly intense, this is an intimate study of the formation and collapse of a romantic triangle, played with an invigorating absence of sentiment by three actors at the top of their game.

| Dec 13, 2023

Ira Sachs is a master of the small, delicate gestures that wind up having seismic repercussions in our lives. In Passages, which might be his masterpiece, he fashions the most delectably ruinous of love triangles.

| Dec 9, 2023

A brilliantly acted and sparingly composed film that succeeds in bringing this extraordinary issue politely to the screen with real emotional intelligence. This is unquestionably Sachs’ best film to date.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 9, 2023

Passages is for people who appreciate unapologtic authenticity in its storytelling. It smolders, discomfits, and captivates from beginning to sad end. 

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 2, 2023

Passages is beautiful because it focuses on an individual that, at his core, is ugly. Even still, Sachs is able to find a human core that’s radiant within all of it, warts and all.

| Original Score: C+ | Oct 30, 2023

A film that is profoundly real, impactful, and even uncomfortable, but above all, is an artistic and complex story about three people confronted with their own sense of morality. [Full review in Spanish]

| Oct 5, 2023