Leigh seems to have made this film as a cautionary tale, warning those in power not to repeat the mistakes of history. Whether this is the case or not, it was what I personally took away from the film, and I found the message very powerful.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 14, 2024

It's a masterfully made film, and a passionate statement from a humanist filmmaker that never resorts to drawing modern-day parallels; he does not need to, as the implications remain intractable.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 3, 2022

Episode 41: Best of 2019 So Far

| Original Score: 75/100 | Oct 4, 2021

Its dense historical narrative hinders Peterloo's watchability as a film but the events it retells are compelling ... [and] performed by a talented and wide-reaching cast.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 25, 2021

Leigh has captured the essence of the historical moment and its enduring significance.

| Feb 10, 2021

Compelling cinema for the discerning moviegoer.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 19, 2020

In the end, the extensive length takes its toll until the historical narrative is no longer interesting. It's a minor Leigh movie. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 30, 2020

Yes, Leigh still knows how to mount a handsome production. He just doesn't go past that here.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 25, 2020

Among the worst and most awkward films of a terribly overrated director.

| Jun 26, 2020

Leigh presents history as breaking news and as augury: The age of 'gilded reptiles' -- to borrow a labor agitator's characterization of the 19th-century ruling class -- is with us still.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 22, 2020

Even when constrained by the small spaces of peasant quarters or interiors lit only by candlelight, the film is a visual achievement of beauty and authenticity.

| Feb 11, 2020

From the thick dialects of northern England, to the period garb, to the poverty-strewn faces of the old women barking half a dozen eggs for a "penny farthing" in the market, Peterloo weaves a rich tapestry.

| Original Score: 3.75/5 | Jan 8, 2020

Riveting from start to finish.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 18, 2019

It's talky, but a lot of the talk is quite interesting and passionate. It's sort of like being in a really good town hall meeting.

| Sep 27, 2019

Mike Leigh's Peterloo is a rare story about the fight for a fairer democracy: one of carnage rather than triumph, one that ends with tragedy and unfinished labour rather than success and social change.

| Sep 20, 2019

When that climax comes, helped along by a hasty reading of the riot act, ale for the troops, and the provocateuring of Home Office spies, Peterloo explodes into epic cinema-and epic rage.

| Jul 24, 2019

Peterloo has moments of beauty... But without conflict between characters and in the minds of viewers, Peterloo fails to rise above a shiny piece of propaganda.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 9, 2019

An epic historical film.

| Original Score: A- | Jul 8, 2019

Peterloo is flawed but ambitious, visually impressive, immersive in its detail.

| Jul 3, 2019

There's an emotional distance to Peterloo that often makes it seem stagey.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 21, 2019