While it is easy to get swept away by the crass vulgarism of his work, Russell uses his confrontational style in order to get below the surface of normalized and accepted institutions of abuse and oppression.

| Nov 21, 2023

More than its images of medieval exorcism or nuns writhing in demonic ecstasy, it is how Russell critiques and questions the institutions held dear by Western civilization that earned the film its notorious reputation and censorship.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 17, 2022

The Devils is not the hysterical mess that causes critics to blow a gasket at the time, but a sobering and thoughtful depiction of the corrupt nature of power

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 3, 2022

What I find such a pity is that Russell should apparently so distrust his own skill as a mesmerising story-teller.

| Mar 18, 2020

About facts at any rate, and as cinematic reconstructions go, The Devils seems to be pretty accurate. But it is startlingly unsuccessful in moving its audience.

| Mar 18, 2020

What is quite certain is that Russell has been true to himself as never before and that in doing so, he will irritate, excite, bore and outrage more film-goers than ever before.

| Mar 18, 2020

Even more than The Music Lovers, The Devils reveals an infantile compulsion to shock and repel, cost what it will.

| Mar 18, 2020

'The Devils' is a benchmark of transgression and profane cinema, a hidden jewel of the genre. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 15, 2019

Despite its superb acting, gratuitous excesses turn this short baroque opera into a simple comic opera. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Jul 30, 2019

The truly provocative -- some might even say blasphemous -- part of the film is its assertion that, even while preaching their rhetoric of sin and salvation, nuns and priests and cardinals are only human, and humans are nothing but animals.

| Nov 8, 2018

It's scandalous in that it talks about things people generally aren't prepared for and it does so with the sharp edge of satire. After seeing the film, you'll know full well who, in Ken Russell's supposition, the real Devils are.

| Nov 8, 2018

It is like a lunatic opera, an attempt to make a furious poem out of frenzy. Russell's flamboyant theatricality and his interest in the perverse have been too much imposed on his other films; but here, style and subject are perfectly matched.

| Nov 8, 2018

It's an experience which pulsates and perverts, especially in those glorious moments when Russell slaps the sacred directly in its frescoed face... In this brilliant film, nothing is safe: not God, not Satan, not man, not their collective meaning.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Nov 8, 2018

Weird, disarmingly funny, and stuffed to the gills with inspired visuals and intense framing from [director of photograph] David Watkin, The Devils is a masterpiece.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 8, 2018

All the events and persons depicted in The Devils are intended to be confused with actual events and persons. How do I know? Ken Russell tells me so.

| Original Score: 0/4 | Apr 29, 2018

Bruegel couldn't have captured the insanity better.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 12, 2015

Whatever the moral perspective, it keeps you gripped right to the end.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 9, 2015

The set design, by future director Derek Jarman, is probably the most successful element of the film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 9, 2015

Never letting up its energy, 'The Devils' is eye-ride.

| Aug 3, 2010

Reed carries the film with an admirably restrained portrayal of the doomed priest. Redgrave, on screen only sporadically, is stunning as the salacious sister.

| Aug 14, 2008