It is outspoken -- but honestly so, not cheaply designed to merely shock its audience.

| Nov 17, 2020

A socio-conscious noir where a picture of one man consoling another runs a streak of destruction through multiple lives.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 7, 2020

With typically British genius for compromise, the motion picture Victim which treats the subject of homosexuality almost fairly, if not squarely, also is a "jolly good thriller."

| May 19, 2020

Dirk Bogarde gives the performance of his career in this compelling thriller.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2019

Dirk Bogarde offers one of his best performances... He is homosexual only by inclination, never by act. Yet even such equivocation is a big step towards candour, and casting a star in such a part demands courage.

| Jul 11, 2018

Victim may seem archaic. But even its compromises teach us something about the era that produced it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 22, 2018

"Victim" is an essential addition to the LGBT cannon that has the ability to put its audience in a cold sweat. The sense of fear on the screen is palpable.

| Original Score: A+ | Nov 24, 2017

It's a strenuously well-meaning, often chewy, sometimes stilted drama about a plummy London barrister's attempt to expose the criminals blackmailing a young gay man with whom he had a brief 'association'.

| Aug 18, 2017

Dirk Bogarde is needle-sharp as Melville Farr, a sophisticated London barrister with a successful practice who is about to become a QC - and whose tamping down of his homosexuality has filled him with angst.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 28, 2017

The film's presentation of sexual oppression remains shockingly relevant to this day.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 22, 2017

[Victim] is a snapshot of social history that has dated in the past 40 years. But it is well worth watching for Dirk Bogarde's superb performance.

| Mar 13, 2015

Though a tad dated and tame by today's standards, this 1961 drama was not only ground-breaking in its depiction of homosexuality, but it also marked the occasion when Dirk Bogarde broke free from his popular matine idol image.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 12, 2014

What a gripping film -- melodramatic and self-conscious, yes, but forthright and bold.

| Feb 6, 2013

Impeccably liberal, weirdly restrained and, aside from anything else, a fascinating historical document.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 6, 2013

The intensity of Bogarde's performance, not least where he confesses to wife Sylvia Syms his homosexual desires, transcends the film's well-intentioned cautiousness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 6, 2013

Immensely significant in its plea for tolerance for gay men (interestingly, lesbianism is not discussed here), Victim works hard arguing that gays are part of the typical, healthy fabric of society.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 6, 2013

[Victim] has a careful performance by Bogarde, and it pursues with eloquence and conviction the case against an antiquated statute.

| Feb 6, 2013

If it now appears quaintly old-fashioned in its attitudes and assumptions, it still impresses thanks to Dirk Bogarde's performance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 6, 2013

Moralistic thriller with a sincere plea for Great Britain to end its oppressive law that makes it a criminal offense to be a homosexual.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 18, 2011

... a startlingly handsome feature with a theatrical flair and a shadow of a crime thriller running through it.

| Feb 13, 2011