Before Night FallsMovie Reviews

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Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    In uniting to honor Arenas, Bardem and Schnabel create something extraordinary. Read full review

  • 100
    San Francisco Chronicle | Edward Guthmann

    It's an horrific and tragic story, but somehow made beautiful through the care and attention of Schnabel's direction and Bardem's tender, unforgettable performance. Read full review

  • 100
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Arenas' life zigzags before us in a manner as heady and unpredictable as it must have felt to the man who lived it. Read full review

  • 90
    Variety |

    A dense, emotionally satisfying portrait of a man, a time and a place. Read full review

  • 88
    Boston Globe | Jay Carr

    Most of all it's the emotional and spiritual arc of an exile, in all its terrible isolation, that gives ''Before Night Falls'' its power. Read full review

  • 88
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Steven Rea

    This is a sad, passionate, beautifully wrought story, and Bardem's portrait of Arenas is at once daring and deeply moving. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    There is a little something of the spoiled masochist about Arenas. One would not say he seeks misery, but he wears it like a badge of honor, and we can see his mistakes approaching before he does. This is not a weakness in the film but one of its intriguing strengths Read full review

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Anchored by a charismatic and accessible performance by Javier Bardem as star-crossed Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, this florid examination of an artist's coming of age, of cultures in collusion and conflict, is difficult to resist. Read full review

  • 80
    The New York Times | Stephen Holden

    Like a deathbed dream it leapfrogs through Arenas's life, reconstructing crucial moments as a succession of bright, feverish illuminations. Read full review

  • 75
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    Plays like a labor of love. Read full review

Before Night Falls Movie Ratings + Reviews

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