Goya's GhostsMovie Reviews

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So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 52 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

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

  • 75
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Carrie Rickey

    There is so little emotionally or intellectually at stake in most popular entertainment that Goya's Ghosts, Milos Forman's challenging, compelling and wildly uneven film, shoots like a cannonball into the solar plexus. I can't remember when I've been so physically and mentally shattered. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    An oddly structured tale about Francisco Goya and the Spain that he lived and worked in. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Goya's Ghosts is like the sketchbook Goya might have made with a camera. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety | Jonathan Holland

    Ambitious script is stranded between entertainment and intellectualism, leaving us with a magnificent folly, thoroughly watchable for its visuals but ultimately hollow. Read full review

  • 60
    Los Angeles Times | Carina Chocano

    Lavish production and wardrobe design, as well as beautiful cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe make Goya's Ghosts lovely to look at, but as a portrait of the artist, the movie is a letdown. Read full review

  • 60
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    Below-the-line credits are terrific, which only increases an overwhelming sense of disappointment with the film's failed ambitions. Read full review

  • 50
    The New York Times |

    An unwieldy mix of political satire and lavish period soap opera. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    Handsome but stilted. Read full review

  • 38
    Boston Globe | Ty Burr

    An overstuffed turkey that's entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Read full review

  • 25
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    In a season of digital bombast, it can be a relief to walk into a stodgy life-of-the-great-man costume drama. Goya's Ghosts, before it turns into a messy, horse-drawn load, achieves a civilized stuffiness that gives off its own mild pleasure. Read full review

View more reviews for Goya's Ghosts on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ Intense historical epic is for adults only.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that teens may be interested because Natalie Portman stars, but that the film is too intense for tweens and younger teens. It's loosely based on a particularly violent period of history, perceived by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Images of torture (woman hangs naked from the ceiling by her wrists behind her back: very painful looking), rape, emaciated prisoners, riots in the street, soldiers on horseback assaulting crowds, underclass attacking a wealthy man who tries to escape; occasional talk of hanging, decapitation, prostitution, and torture.
  • Families can talk about the ways that history is portrayed in fictional movies: How does this movie use Goya's ideas (as well as his paintings and other artwork) to shape its own story of the corruption of the time? You might look at some of Goya's famous "Black Paintings" to see how they compare to images in the film. You can also discuss the idea that art can be used to protest social and political injustice, as Goya tried to use his art. Or you can talk about how the film shows his fight against intolerance.
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Goya observes malevolence by authorities, Church officials, and wealthy clients.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: The cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition and then the French Revolution is focused through very specific images of violence: Inés' painful torture (she screams and cries) is matched by the similar torture of Lorenzo, who also collapses emotionally; her abuse in imprison for years results in a devastating loss of weight, teeth, and hair (made very visible); insinuation that Lorenzo rapes Inés (she accepts his embrace, but she's in prison and afraid); discussion of the Revolution (decapitation); crowds loot and cause a ruckus; soldiers ride horses, shoot guns, cause screams and falling bodies; a woman's rape shown briefly; asylum is full of unkempt, beaten-looking inmates; sentenced to death, an Inquistor begs for his life; Goya's head is cut in a scuffle; rebels attack a party of soldiers traveling with women in a wagon; rebels attack Lorenzo.
  • sex false5 Sex: Sexual imagery here is frequently entangled with violence. Inés' torture includes being hung up, naked (explicit image) so her arms are pulled backward; in prison, Lorenzo embraces her, intimating that he also rapes her (off-screen); Alicia is a prostitute (discussions of her appearance and procuring her services); when a woman is raped, her breasts are visible; discussion of prostitution (Lorenzo determines to ship prostitutes to America, references to "whore" and "harlot").
  • language false3 Language: "Bastard," "whore," "harlot."
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false0 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Wine drinking by upper classes; bawdy scenes at bars.
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.

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Dave White

1.5

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Goya's Ghosts Movie Ratings + Reviews

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So-so 288 fan reviews

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