Polanski hopes to get under the skin during the offering, but such irritation only connects periodically in the overlong feature, though creepiness and interesting interpretational elements do contribute to the puzzle aspect of the material.

| Original Score: B | Mar 17, 2025

The Tenant is a poetic nightmare about punishment imposed on an unguilty man who merely entertained great fear of guilt.

| Jan 23, 2024

It's strange stuff, and too subtle for people who like The Exorcist and The Omen, but The Tenant is a real horror movie.

| May 9, 2023

Absorbing but not recommended for those looking for an easy good time.

| Original Score: B | Nov 29, 2022

If only Polanski, who collaborated with Gerard Brach on the script, had not let this parable on paranoia become so predictable and preposterous. Well before the end, The Tenant succumbs to meaningless and therefore boring hokum.

| Aug 3, 2022

A few years ago, Polanski made.an enjoyably bizarre movie in Carlo Ponti’s villa, and called it What? His new movie, not unbearable but simply insubstantial, could be called So What?

| Jun 22, 2022

The Tenant is a complex, obtuse, but fascinating film. The acting is superb.

| May 10, 2022

Unfortunately, [Roman Polanski's] current film, The Tenant veers dangerously close to parody and evokes not horror but laughter.

| Oct 31, 2019

Roman Polanski creates a surreal and suggestive fable. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Jul 23, 2019

This creepy psychological thriller, dealing with paranoia and split identity, is one of Polanski's most underestimated films.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 15, 2013

Poorly received on its release, it has since become a cult fave.

| Original Score: B | Jun 6, 2010

A disturbing and poignant anthology of Roman Polanski's favourite, oppressive themes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 18, 2010

The film [is] extremely, scarily effective (it is also surprisingly funny).

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 18, 2010

Although overshadowed by director Roman Polanski's more famous horror efforts... The Tenant is in many ways superior - a haunting, mesmerizing tale of a man's loss of identity and descent into madness.

| Dec 11, 2009

It has a humorous tang, underlying the macabre.

| Oct 18, 2008

Owing to the very same personal urgency that makes it a masterpiece, it is overwhelmingly solipsistic and ultimately alienating.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 14, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 26, 2006

As the plot escalates into increasingly arbitrary excesses of fantasy and heads for the predictable pay-off, the movie looks more and more like a potboiler.

| Jun 24, 2006

The Tenant carries the most shocking double climax in all of cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 6, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 6, 2005