BlindnessMovie Reviews

Poster art for "Blindness."

Gifts + Promos

The Vow Free Gift

Buy tickets & receive a FREE 3-Month Love Forecast from Astrology.com!

Fandango Bucks

Send your sweetheart the gift of movies this Valentine’s Day!

Journey Sweeps

Enter for a chance to win a trip for 2 to Nicaragua!

Interactive Oscar Ballot

Who's taking home the Oscar? Cast your vote & challenge your friends on Facebook!

Need Help?
So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 45 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

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

  • 75
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    A perversely enjoyable, occasionally harrowing adaptation of Jos Saramago's 1995 disaster allegory. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    At times almost unbearably ugly, but by the time you walk out of the theater, you know you've seen something. Read full review

  • 58
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    As the players enact the fall and rebirth of civilization, Meirelles suggests that even a society gone to hell looks better with a little music-video-like pizzazz. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    Blindness is provocative cinema. But it also is predictable cinema: It startles but does not surprise. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post |

    An arresting, often riveting film that is fascinating to look at but not nearly so interesting to watch. Read full review

  • 50
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    Not a great film, mainly because it can't transcend -- and, indeed, lays bare -- the intellectual flimsiness of its source. But it is, nonetheless, full of examples of what good filmmaking looks like. For all its chin-rubbing, brow-furrowing attitudes, it does not, in the end, give you much to think about. But there is, nonetheless, a lot here to see. Read full review

  • 50
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    A brilliant idea that seems to lack the vision to be great. Read full review

  • 50
    Variety | Justin Chang

    Meirelles' slickly crafted drama rarely achieves the visceral force, tragic scope and human resonance of Saramago's prose. Read full review

  • 38
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Blindness is one of the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, films I've ever seen. Read full review

  • 30
    Los Angeles Times | Carina Chocano

    What was presumably intended to play like a fable plays, instead, like an overly long car commercial crossed with a scare-mongering public service announcement. Read full review

View more reviews for Blindness on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Arty apocalypse is as rewarding as it is rough.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this bleak drama -- which depicts the total breakdown of society (including filth, squalor, graphic brutality, and sexual coercion) in the wake of a plague that leaves its victims blind -- isn't for kids. Several scenes depict the aftermath of the social collapse, including the absence of law and order, medical treatment, food and shelter, and more. There are also several sex scenes -- some of which are consensual, and some of which aren't -- and a good deal of strong language. Violence includes beatings, shootings, and much more.
  • Families can talk about the questions the film raises: What would happen if some catastrophic event shattered civilization? Would people come together in a time of crisis or fall apart? Families can also talk about Julianne Moore's character, who becomes a fierce protector to a small group of survivors -- and also grows as a person in her new role. Does crisis bring out the best in some people?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Extensive depiction of social breakdown in the wake of a disease that strikes its victims blind -- including riots, quarantine, and armed suppression of blind civilians. As the plague effects the entire populace, civilization descends into chaos, squalor, and filth. A group of quarantined victims set up a tyranny under rule of force, telling other inmates that they'll only receive food in exchange for their remaining valuables, and, later, sex. A man who was blind before the sickness assists this tyranny.
What to watch for
  • violence false4 Violence: Beatings, shootings, stabbings, scuffling, fistfights, panicked pushing and shoving; nonconsensual sex with a high level of roughness. Several characters are shot on screen; a character commits suicide. Several characters die, trapped in a burning building that's been deliberately set on fire. Plane and car crashes shown in news footage. Government troops fire on unarmed, blind civilians.
  • sex false4 Sex: Extensive sexual and nonsexual nudity (including both male and female full frontal, from a distance); a prostitute visits a client in a hotel room; consensual sexual activity on screen; sex is bartered for food in the aftermath of a devastating plague.
  • language false4 Language: Frequent strong language, including "damn," "hell," "f--k," "s--t," "bitch," "bulls--t," "whore," "motherf---er," and the "N" word.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false2 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Characters drink wine and hard liquor.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

Looking for more reviews? Movies.com Critics Say:

Dave White

2.0

Dave White Profile See Dave White's Profile

...drops you down on Planet Metaphor... Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

Read more movie reviews at Movies.com

Blindness Featured Trailers + Video Clips

Watch All Videos

Facebook Movie Fans

Fan Fandango on Facebook