A tragic, timeless tale about a spirited woman's stubborn devotion to a self-serving man.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2018

It is good and worth seeing but not great.

| Jan 13, 2018

Bellocchio encapsulates the long-running mass hysteria of a nation enthralled by the demagogic antics of a now-seeming buffoon.

| Jun 20, 2013

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Carol Crivelli's soaring classical score heightens Bellochio's operatic tendencies.

| Dec 30, 2010

Vincere maintains its grip through sheer flair.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 20, 2010

The screenplay is unkind to lead actor Giovanna Mezzogiorno, requiring her to replay the same obsessive behaviour in less-than-inspiring locales, and all the film's energy just fizzles out.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 14, 2010

Masterly directed. Powerful and tragic. Pure cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2010

The story might fascinate if it weren't plunged into a stylistic deep freeze -- when your best sequences are chunks of greatest-hits newsreel, you're clearly in trouble.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 13, 2010

An occasionally exhilarating retelling of a fascinating, little-known story. And how Mezzogiorno missed awards consideration is a mystery.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2010

An astute study of amour fou and a cautionary tale about how the worship of false idols can lead to personal and national collapse.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2010

The film's stylistic explosiveness extends from its powerful music to the graphics hurled out from the screen with the panache of a Mussolini-era newsreel.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2010

Bellocchio has turned the story of Mussolini's discarded wife and son into a movie that has some of the bully swagger and excess of Il Duce himself.

| May 11, 2010

Vincere's images are indelible, if oddly romantic, as dangerously seductive as Il Duce himself.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 23, 2010

Vincere is a gripping presentation of a little-known true story and its historical lessons.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2010

The untold story of how fascist strongman Benito Mussolini rose to power by trampling on the woman who loved him is a bracingly cinematic lesson in how all politics is personal.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 15, 2010

There's visual poetry here and haunted performances from Mezzogiorno and Timi -- who plays two roles, and is especially gripping as Dalser 1/2 1/2s grown son.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 6, 2010

A passionate, bold look at power, paranoia and betrayal in a little-known corner of history, Vincere is steamy, sad and so Italian it feels like an opera.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 2, 2010

Bellocchio tells the film's historical story in an electrifying fashion, mixing in newsreel footage, on-screen slogans and Futurist art, a bit of thunder and lightning and Carlo Crivelli's boom-boom score.

| Apr 2, 2010

It's grand, heartbreaking material, made even more riveting by the fact that it is very likely true.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 2, 2010