Ararat: Critic Reviews

MovieWeb: 0 reviews

56%

RottenTomatoes: 88 reviews

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Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly (Top Critic)

75

[A] difficult, dense, passionate drama.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Stephen Holden New York Times (Top Critic)

80

Hands down the year's most thought-provoking film. But it pays a price for its intricate intellectual gamesmanship.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Guardian [UK] (Top Critic)

Full Review » 9 years ago
Mike Clark USA Today (Top Critic)

63

Has its moments -- and almost as many subplots.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Ann Hornaday Washington Post (Top Critic)

Full Review » 7 years ago
Desson Thomson Washington Post (Top Critic)

In a strange way, Egoyan has done too much. He's worked too hard on this movie.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Wesley Morris Boston Globe (Top Critic)

63

Before long, you get Egoyan's big idea -- and it's hardly a good one. He wants to turn the movie screen into a blackboard.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Dennis Lim Village Voice (Top Critic)

The director's customary narrative elisions and evasions have an unsettling mirror function here.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Houston Chronicle (Top Critic)

Full Review » 7 years ago
Chris Vognar Dallas Morning News (Top Critic)

67

You can quibble with excess characters and storylines, but the cumulative effect is strong and emotionally accurate.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times (Top Critic)

63

Egoyan's work often elegantly considers various levels of reality and uses shifting points of view, but here he has constructed a film so labyrinthine that it defeats his larger purpose.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Michael Wilmington Chicago Tribune (Top Critic)

75

In the end, Ararat has enough artistry and intelligence -- and enough commitment from Egoyan, producer Robert Lantos and company -- to justify more than a higher-than-mixed rating.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Susan Stark Detroit News (Top Critic)

50

Only the most patient, sensitive and sensible of viewers will cut through the film's affectations and indulgences to come to the point.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Jonathan Foreman New York Post (Top Critic)

63

The Armenian genocide deserves a more engaged and honest treatment.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Geoff Pevere Toronto Star (Top Critic)

80

A pertinent powerfully intelligent account of the morality of making history.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Liam Lacey Globe and Mail (Top Critic)

63

The metaphors are provocative, but too often, the viewer is left puzzled by the mechanics of the delivery.
Full Review » 10 years ago
James Berardinelli ReelViews (Top Critic)

63

Did the film inform and educate me? Yes. Did it move me to care about what happened in 1915 Armenia? No. And that is where Ararat went astray.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Kirk Honeycutt Hollywood Reporter (Top Critic)

While obviously an extremely personal work, it remains inextricably stuck in an emotionally unavailable rut.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Kevin Thomas Los Angeles Times (Top Critic)

80

Makes considerable demands of the audience but richly rewards those prepared to go the distance.
Full Review » 10 years ago
Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com

42

A disappointing, unnecessarily convoluted attempt to present the 1915 Armenian genocide through an intergenerational family melodrama.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Urban Cinefile Critics Urban Cinefile

Full Review » 4 years ago
Geoff Andrew Time Out

Full Review » 6 years ago
Ken Hanke Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

80

Verges on the brilliant and is a much more interesting work than Egoyan's admirable but over-praised The Sweet Hereafter.
Full Review » 6 years ago
Film Threat

70

Full Review » 6 years ago
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Review » 8 years ago