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

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 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

What emerges is a torrid, gripping drama that acknowledges not just what damage the careless can wreak but also to what extent the responsible often conspire in their own annihilation.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 7, 2023

Passages is smart and precise about other people’s messes. It’s a way to indulge in the most volatile parts of ourselves without ever feeling like we’re about to lose control.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2023

From the way Sachs shoots the streets of Paris, it’s obvious he adores New Wave film-makers like Truffaut.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2023

As often in his [Ira Sachs] films, bourgeois comfort is a façade; resentment’s a cauldron; and the practical setup of people’s lives is in danger of gazumping their destinies.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2023

Passages deserves to find the widest audience among fans of “grownup” cinema.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2023

Passages is one of the best love triangle movies I’ve ever seen, primarily because it is about the fluid nature of not just sexuality but desire. And as Tomas, Rogowski gives an electrifying, star-making performance.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 1, 2023

... A forensic analysis of the ebb and flow of power in all relationships, and the psychological make-up of those who wield it best.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2023

Anchored by excellent performances from its three intertwined leads, Passages is alternately tender and thorny in its close character study of a narcissist, and as a romantic drama with no winners.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2023

As a portrait of artistic monstrosity, the film would make a great double bill with Tár. As with that film, you also get the uncomfortable feeling of being drawn into the orbit of the beast.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 31, 2023

Rogowski, Whishaw and Exarchopoulos are all black-belt performers and they bring this film to vivid and sensual life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 30, 2023

Passages is lean, effective drama, with minimal dialogue, always in the middle of things, not offering explanatory beginnings or ends.

| Aug 25, 2023

Passages harks back unapologetically to a time when art cinema was synonymous with sexual candour.

| Aug 25, 2023

Passages is a refreshingly candid portrait of life, love and sexuality in the 2020s.

| Aug 21, 2023

Sachs’s tempestuous love-triangle drama feels like a precious anomaly within the landscape of contemporary American cinema.

| Aug 18, 2023

This is a smart, lustrous film, and a bracingly honest one, the kind of movie that leaves you feeling both invigorated and a little blue.

| Aug 17, 2023

Passages features all the intimate humanity of Sachs’s last decade of work, but he adds a wonderfully bitter edge and a sharp humor in its depiction of a love triangle...

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 12, 2023