The fiction, ultimately, is the thing. The Artist, in the best possible sense, is more of a movie than a film. It's played for laughs and tears; it switches from action to tenderness; it's got a really funny dog.

| Feb 20, 2019

The Artist is simply a pleasure to watch, if only for just two hours in time.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 8, 2017

Michel Hazanavicius' black-and-white, mostly silent comedy The Artist is a gorgeously made curiosity -- a film that functions as a testament to its own obsession with other movies.

| Feb 17, 2015

Uplifting, heart-warming, hilarious... not necessarily words you'd expect to apply to a black and white silent French film. But The Artist is no ordinary movie.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 17, 2015

The Artist is drunk on the history of cinema and art, and culture buffs will get giddy on it.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 17, 2015

Retro but totally modern, frivolous yet fundamentally serious, The Artist is a thing of grace and joy and a great American film -- of the sort it takes the French to make.

| Feb 17, 2015

Glorious, delicious and an unalloyed joy... I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it.

| Feb 17, 2015

Sometimes cinema should just be pure, unadulterated joy, and The Artist is precisely that, in every wordless frame.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 17, 2015

Through it all, Dujardin has great dignity, is hugely likeable, and pulls off touches of comic poignancy not far from Chaplin's.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 17, 2015

The result is an irresistible delight.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 17, 2015

The whole thing is so damn clever and charming, it might just sneak off with Best Picture.

| Jun 20, 2013

It isn't arty or intellectual, though it is artful and ingenious, and it's the rare crowd-pleaser that never feels obvious or pandering.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 15, 2013

There is literally nothing wrong with it. I don't have a single nit to pick, minor flaw to point out or little bit that annoyed me. It is pure magic from the first frame to the last.

| Feb 15, 2013

You can't fault it as smart entertainment, which eschews parody to make a sincere tribute that also serves as cogent current commentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 17, 2012

The movie ever fully shakes off its air of skillfully executed experiment, but it's spirited and charming nonetheless.

| Mar 7, 2012

A glorious spectacle that captivates the senses and energizes the mind, The Artist is a full-bodied sensation that had me doing interior cartwheels while I sat in the theatre gluttonously consuming each and every morsel.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 27, 2012

[A] sweet, sincere, massively overrated valentine to silent movies.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 23, 2012

Simply irresistible.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 5, 2012

Not just a re-creation of an archaic technique -- the characters are real, vivid, and affecting. The movie transcends its story to be more than a tribute to a simpler time.

| Original Score: A- | Jan 4, 2012

The Artist is a slight confection, really, but it's so delicious and knowing that it may well end up on any number of cineastes' desert-island lists. It's certainly on mine.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 23, 2011