Its theme of roles’ reversal, intriguing character studies and subtle politics of power and control make it one of Britain’s most memorable cinematic creations.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 9, 2024

The thing that is most exhilarating about the film is that it has been written by someone who is obviously excited by the cinema and made by someone who obviously respects words.

| Mar 7, 2024

a twisted, dark, and wildly unpredictable psychodrama

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 6, 2023

A rather intriguing psychological drama about power relations and the vertical line of social classes. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 15, 2023

A "fascinating" film, one from which it is virtually impossible to turn our eye or our attention, for we are watching a snake at work, a poisonous worm of corruption disguised as a servant and brilliantly played with a vicious servility by Dirk Bogarde.

| Aug 15, 2022

“The Servant” is a remarkable feat of storytelling, a shot over the bow of class structure, all the more remarkable because there are no sympathetic characters.

| Apr 12, 2022

A rarified experience in masterful manipulation and thrilling commentary on the waning power of the social elite in the Swinging Sixties.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 10, 2022

Probably one of the sexiest, sourest and most beautifully photographed British films of all time, The Servant is a masterclass in sadistic power games, thrumming with poisonous erotic energy.

| Nov 12, 2021

A superb performance from Bogarde, this icy but complex character maintains the homoeroticism of its origins, even if it doesn't play them out literally.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 16, 2021

Bogarde, proving not for the first time that he was a whole lot more than just a pretty face, brings a real subtlety and edge to Barratt, letting just enough of the Machiavellian glint through to let us know there's more to this than first appears.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 13, 2021

The drama is masterfully done and exquisitely played...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 10, 2021

The Servant is a masterpiece. A brilliantly acted and beautifully shot drama which tackles class and power dynamics, all to a backdrop of bristling sexual tensions.

| Sep 8, 2021

...one of the great iconic British films, although, for once, there's not a shred of patriotism or jingoism to be found...

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 8, 2021

This script is a masterpiece of homosexual antagonism. Or is it merely class enmity?

| May 28, 2020

Joseph Losey's The Servant hasn't lost any of its mystery over the years since 1963; it might even have gained a bit.

| Apr 8, 2020

The film on its most meaningful level is acid splashed into the wound of class distinction. But it is best enjoyed simply as a slick, spooky, frequently spellbinding study of corruption.

| Apr 8, 2020

The Servant summons up all one's irrational fears and its baroquely sinister atmosphere invests the most ordinary event with middle-of-the-night creepiness.

| Apr 8, 2020

Even at his worst Losey is never dull, and here he is pretty consistently at his best.

| Apr 8, 2020

The transformation of behaviour from seedy man- servant to slatternly, domineering wife is brilliantly handled by Losey and Dirk Bogarde, an actor whose work has always gone beyond the call of duty in a long line of undistinguished films.

| Apr 8, 2020

The viewer is left with not only a portrait of the haves and the have-nots, but a glimpse of what such social stratification provokes -- an all-consuming madness as powerful as it is hidden.

| Apr 8, 2020