There are echoes of Bergman (of course) and of Chekhov, and once or twice I found myself thinking, most unexpectedly, of Heartbreak House.

| Jul 7, 2018

This is pure Tarkovsky, with all the perfectly composed long camera takes and ineffable mystery of the soul that defined his work.

| Jun 7, 2018

In The Sacrifice, the cryptic Tarkovsky style helps create a towering cathedral.

| Aug 4, 2015

As The Sacrifice comes full circle, returning to that spindly tree by the sea and its nurturing, the film itself emerges as a symbolic gesture of great emotional impact.

| Aug 4, 2015

Only those who still quiver at the shopworn lament that advancing technology is destroying the world will find the philosophizing vital in this bookish stupor.

| Nov 11, 2014

A grand, unworldly, even antiworldly religious vision that depends on its perfect pitch to avoid absurdity and bathos.

| Nov 10, 2014

It's long, stately and po-faced (all reasons why Tarkovsky seems faintly unfashionable these days), but if it's extended, beautifully composed tracking shots you want, he's your man.

| Dec 7, 2007

Invaluable pointers on narrative patience, spiritual yearning and technical finesse.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 7, 2007

Brilliant and audacious, with one of the most extraordinary final sequences in modern cinema.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 7, 2007

A difficult film - slow-paced, unashamedly theatrical and heavily laden with philosophy - yet a profoundly satifying one: a rewarding display of filmmaking mastery that forms a mystical and enigmatic coda to a legendary career.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 7, 2007

As involving and intellectually rich as all Tarkovsky's work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

For those willing to acccept the tenets of Tarkovsky's cinema of spiritual quest, his esoteric notions of Christian iconography and his obscure approach to cinematic meaning, the film can seem nothing less than miraculous.

| Jun 24, 2006

To awaken the spiritual hunger for something beyond materialistic, desacrilized modern existence was the burden of Tarkovsky, cinematic poet laureate of the Russian soul.

| Original Score: B | Oct 27, 2004

The Sacrifice is a stunningly beautiful film that holds your attention even while you feel slightly stunned, in a less welcome way, by what is actually going on.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 30, 2004

It's a paradox: a sublime failure. For all its stunning, poetic imagery, it's almost impossible to sit through.

| Jan 1, 2000

Tarkovsky pulls you into a dark, foreboding nightmare and Nykvist [Bergman's former cameraman] gives that nightmare an explosive awakening.

| Jan 1, 2000

The Sacrifice is not the sort of movie most people will choose to see, but those with the imagination to risk it may find it rewarding.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 1, 2000