Would I like the movie better if Bertolucci had put in the novel’s cheap thrills? You bet I would.

| Sep 12, 2023

The picture is cleanly directed but lacks the visual excitement and emotional resonance of even lesser Bertuloci Films.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 9, 2023

This film is not ideologically malignant. It is simply bad. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jan 21, 2023

Insufferably dull.

| May 19, 2020

Working with legendary cinematographer and longtime collaborator Vittorio Storaro, Bertolucci constructed one of the most visually gorgeous films of his career.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 6, 2020

| Original Score: B | Sep 7, 2011

Filled with stunning visuals.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 11, 2011

Disappointing.

| Dec 7, 2007

A disappointingly reductive adaptation of Paul Bowles's first novel.

| Dec 7, 2007

Those who haven't read the book will be left bewildered.

| Dec 7, 2007

Brimming with obscure meaning and devoid of drive and fervor, the film dries up in that symbolic desert sun, the victim of its own pretensions and a casualty of trying to film something best suited to the realm of cult literature.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 7, 2007

As you'd expect, it's a big, handsome film, rich and strange in psychological depths and eroticism. Malkovich and Winger play woundingly well.

| Jun 24, 2006

Bertolucci's grand desert epic gets stuck in the sand right at the start.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 6, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 14, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 28, 2004

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Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 30, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 23, 2004

Soul searching is rarely a thrill a minute but it's rarely as tedious as this. ...Oscar-bait it may be, but "The Sheltering Sky" is more deserving of the First Annual Chicken Little Award.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 5, 2003