... a delicate and delightful piece of old-fashioned hand-drawn animation where character is in body language and personality in the "performance."

| Aug 19, 2023

Does ample justice to the many layers of Jacques Tati’s tale, both in text and out.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 25, 2023

There are some laughs in "The Illusionist," but a lot of it is melancholic and somewhat self-pitying.

| Original Score: C | Oct 4, 2022

It's not just the themes that resemble a Tati picture. Chomet and company go even further to make this feel like a movie that could slide right into Jacques Tati's catalog.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 22, 2022

While I've heard nothing yet about Chomet's next film, I can wholeheartedly say L'illusionniste had made my interest disappear.

| Jan 7, 2021

Perfectly combines the unique visual style of Oscar-nominated animator Sylvain Chomet with the melancholy, simple, and poignant storytelling approach of Jacques Tati.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Nov 30, 2020

The Illusionist changed me in ways big and small and I am better for having seen it.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 11, 2020

Sweet but with a melancholic edge, if it is occasionally too slight, too circumscribed, or too molasses-paced for its own good, it's a minor quibble next to The Illusionist's overarching charm.

| Jan 21, 2020

The film's animation tells the story, in the manner of a beautifully-illustrated children's storybook.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 16, 2020

You're basically just watching each day of this guy's life, and yet, it's totally magical. Tati's script is full of beauty, humor and sadness, with a very European ending that will leave the viewer a little misty eyed.

| Mar 7, 2019

Chomet has delivered yet another fantastically assured film, one which even transcends the brilliance of his first feature.

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

The Illusionist feels personal, with a deep melancholy that keeps the story from becoming overly sentimental or cutesy.

| Original Score: 3.54 | Aug 13, 2018

Consider director Sylvain Chomet...the ringmaster and main attraction in this melancholic circus accented by a warm, water-colored Edinburg landscape.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 29, 2018

The film is best thought of as a fond homage to Tati from a sympathetic admirer rather than a literal attempt at realising his intentions ... In this it succeeds exquisitely.

| Jan 3, 2018

The Illusionist is as radiantly rich as Tati's own movies, without losing any sense of period.

| Dec 14, 2017

It is elegiac, charming, mournful and wondrous.

| Aug 22, 2017

For his next astonishing feat, that wizard of the animated screen Sylvain Chomet, master of The Triplets of Belleville, has pulled out of his hat an all-new Jacques Tati film.

| Feb 23, 2016

An 80-minute, hand-drawn animated French film without dialogue and with one of the most depressing finale acts ever committed to celluloid: this is The Illusionist. It's also some sort of divine masterpiece.

| Sep 15, 2013

There's plenty of crack-a-smile humor, but the underlying mood recalls the diminuendo stretches in a Jacques Tati film.

| Jul 1, 2013

Pictures speak louder than words, and what 'The Illusionist' speaks loudest about is the notion that what we do for a living is not nearly as important as how we choose to do our living.

Full Review | Original Score: A | May 26, 2013