Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
72 Adela
39 Adventures of Power
78 Afghan Star
61 After the Storm
66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
72 Amreeka
48 Antichrist
73 Araya
62 Art & Copy
55 As Seen Through These Eyes
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
35 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
xx Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76 Bliss
35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
70 Bronson
45 Burning Plain, The
xx Carriers
55 Casi Divas
57 Chelsea on the Rocks
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
59 Collapse
44 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
67 Departures
xx Dil Bole Hadippa
71 Disgrace
xx Do Knot Disturb
70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
xx Eulogy for a Vampire
xx Everyone Else
xx Fatal Promises
56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
62 Five Minutes of Heaven
74 Flame & Citron
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
xx From Mexico with Love
50 Fuel
25 Gentlemen Broncos
50 Give Me Your Hand
58 Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
66 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
83 In the Loop
61 Intimate Enemies
42 Irene in Time
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
xx Laila's Birthday
41 Little Ashes
41 Little Traitor, The
66 Liverpool
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
83 Maid, The
xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
xx Mystery Team
48 New York, I Love You
73 Night and Day
66 No Impact Man
47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34 Other Man, The
xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
xx Paradise
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
44 Peter and Vandy
35 Play the Game
77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx Pretty Ugly People
65 Providence Effect, The
76 Rembrandt's J'accuse
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
40 Shrink
61 Skin
77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx Skiptracers
46 Splinterheads
39 St. Trinian's
89 Still Walking
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
55 Storm
65 Tetro
70 That Evening Sun
72 Thirst
xx Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61 Trucker
xx Turning Green
83 U2 3D
66 Unmade Beds
66 Unmistaken Child
70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
69 We Live in Public
64 Wedding Song, The
64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx You, the Living

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Orphanage, The

EMAILPRINTPicturehouse

Orphanage, The reviews
74
8.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 67 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Horror  |  Mystery  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Sergio G. Sánchez

Directed by: Juan Antonio Bayona

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 28, 2007
DVD: April 22, 2008

Running Time: 110 minutes, Color

Origin: Mexico / Spain

Language(s): Spanish

Summary

RATING: R for some disturbing content

Starring Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Geraldine Chaplin, Montserrat Carulla, Mabel Rivera, and Andrés Gertrúdix

Laura returns to the stately manor house that holds such a special place in her heart. The orphanage was abandoned years ago; Laura and her husband, Carlos, plan to reopen it as a center for sick and disabled children. It will be a place where boys and girls--including the couple's beloved 7-year-old Simón--can play freely in the open air, enjoying the sunshine and the nearby beach. In its years of solitude, however, the orphanage has acquired a haunted, unhappy air. To get used to his creepy surroundings, Simón starts to have relationships with imaginary friends. Simón's circle of unseen friends quickly expands to include five more boys and girls, who tell cryptic stories and engage him in elaborate games that carry a suggestion of the sinister. Troubled, Laura allows herself to get sucked into her son's eerie world, which seems to resonate with a far-away and disturbing echo of her own childhood experiences. (Picturehouse)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Delivers more goose bumps than anything Hollywood has served up in years – which I hope does not mean that Bayona, a first-time feature director and music video whiz, will be enlisted to direct "Saw V."

Read Full Review >
91

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Reaches truly terrifying heights as it becomes clear how possible the worst outcome can be. Like "Pan's Labyrinth," this is a movie about children made very much for adults.

Read Full Review >
90

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Lures us in with extraordinary subtlety. Keeping sound effects and incidental music to a relative minimum, it builds its suspense almost subliminally. So when something scary or shocking does occur -- deprived of those Hollywood-style cues -- we are truly startled.

Read Full Review >
90

Newsweek David Ansen

A great horror movie is like a good shrink--and a lot cheaper, too. It purges us through petrification. That horror movie, thankfully, has arrived. It's called The Orphanage," and it is seriously scary.

Read Full Review >
90

Variety Justin Chang

A fastidiously grim ghost story that rattles the bones of the haunted-house genre and finds plenty of fresh (but not too bloody) meat.

Read Full Review >
88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Deliberately aimed at viewers with developed attention spans. It lingers to create atmosphere, a sense of place, a sympathy with the characters, instead of rushing into cheap thrills.

Read Full Review >
88

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The acting is uniformly superb, the camera work and set design are haunting, and The Orphanage delivers well-earned tears at its beautiful conclusion. Go see it already.

Read Full Review >
88

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

By the end, you'll be chilled and disturbed by what you've seen -- and, rare as this is in a horror movie, touched to the heart.

Read Full Review >
83

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

While some of the trappings and even some of the plot elements could easily be called unoriginal, Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez arrange them in a fresh way, crafting an emotionally resonant, nerve-jangling experience.

Read Full Review >
80

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Despite a few bloodcurdling shocks, this handsome Spanish ghost story from producer Guillermo del Toro follows in the suggestive, richly romantic tradition of the old Val Lewton chillers.

Read Full Review >
80

Empire Olly Richards

A good old-fashioned horror in the best possible way, this is a beautifully told, terrifying ghost story that lingers with you long after the shivers have stopped.

Read Full Review >
80

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

You exit the cinema in a fever of melancholia, wondering how long it will take you to shed the sensation of alarm. The film is less of a shocker than an adventure in anxiety, testing and twisting some of the classic studies in infantile curiosity.

Read Full Review >
75

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

As Laura, Rueda hits sublime notes of confusion, grief and wrath. She's sympathetic enough to make you root for her and complex enough to get you arguing afterward about whether Laura did anything to deserve all this.

Read Full Review >
75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

For those who enjoy ghost stories and are willing to be patient with a movie that gradually unveils its secrets rather than uncovering them all in an orgy of violence and terror, The Orphanage fills a need. The spell it casts early does not evaporate until the epilogue is finished.

Read Full Review >
75

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

In a genre that has been battered by the cheap grotesqueries of special effects, it is a pleasure to be unsettled by something as simple as an invasive beam of light in the shadows of a haunted house.

Read Full Review >
75

USA Today Claudia Puig

In a season filled with dark-themed films, it stands out as an elegantly mounted, surprisingly humane but terrifying horror thriller well worth seeing.

Read Full Review >
75

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The Orphanage gets by on mood and a mournfulness that's not easily soothed. Sadness and loss, it says, are the threads connecting the spirit world and our own, and women, who bring life into the world, understand that far better than men ever will.

Read Full Review >
75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

What distinguishes The Orphanage are some spare but fiendishly well-placed shocks that give the film an extra sense of danger: You can't take comfort with this one assuming you know what lurks around each corner, because you don't. Trust me.

Read Full Review >
75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Bayona's moves are deft, the atmosphere oozes with anxiety and grief, but the big payoff - like the big payoff in The Sixth Sense, another film The Orphanage has more than a bit in common with - never comes.

Read Full Review >
75

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

You're either in the mood to go along with the puzzle pieces or you're not. I'm not usually a puzzle-piece fan myself, not when it's clear that the filmmaker rigs the moves. But I couldn't help but fall for the repurposed real estate, and cheer for the lady strong enough to break through walls when she senses a child is waiting.

Read Full Review >
75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Though the movie has a handful of shots that are downright gross to witness, what makes The Orphanage scary is not what it threatens to show but what it suggests about life.

Read Full Review >
75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The filmmakers know the tropes of spooky movies: Glowering shadows, squeaking playground equipment, eerie storms and half-glimpsed forms, but the film rests on Rueda's subtle, intense performance, rooted in every half-articulated anxiety that ever gnawed at a parent's brain.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

As in “Pan’s Labyrinth,” The Orphanage relies on a risky blend of clinically realistic horrors and poetic suggestions of an alternate world, one that can be visited, but at a price.

Read Full Review >
70

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

An unexpectedly poignant ghost story.

Read Full Review >
70

The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis

This Spanish supernatural thriller begins interestingly and finishes intriguingly. But what lies between drags because the film lacks a driving story line.

Read Full Review >
70

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The Orphanage, a diverting, overwrought ghost story from Spain, relies on basic and durable horror movie techniques.

Read Full Review >
70

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

The Orphanage is a careful, elegant work that looks a little rough around the edges; it was shot largely with natural light and employs minimal special effects.

Read Full Review >
70

LA Weekly Mark Olsen

There’s not really a bogeyman in The Orphanage and not much blood; just insane intensity and a building sense of bad vibes.

Read Full Review >
63

Premiere Aaron Hillis

The Orphanage's joys come from the experiential: Bayona's cultured technical skills, including some phenomenal sound design, and sustained anxiety. It's about as healthy as junk food gets.

Read Full Review >
60

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

It's worth a look, even taking into consideration the lack of zombies.

Read Full Review >
60

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

You may see The Orphanage for what it is, an enjoyable contraption, without believing a bit of it.

Read Full Review >
50

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Ultimately the composition comes off as both overplayed and underdone.

Read Full Review >
50

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A combination ghost and shaggy dog story that is so well-made and acted you can nearly overlook its murky, unsatisfying ending.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 67 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Emeric C gave it an8:
Great movie, but the ending could've been better.

Kevin C. gave it a9:
A beautiful film the evokes a creepy atmosphere instead of going for cheap scares. It plays with your expectations, as some of the things you think are important end up being inconsequential, or vice versa, creating a conclusion that is completely logical but that still manages to surprise you. My one caveat is that I wish they had included a couple of the deleted scenes to add more of the character depth, but maybe it's hindsight and if they were in there I would think they were spoon-feeding the end to me.

Austin gave it a10:
Terrific suspense and a great textured story. The acting is much better than I'd expected. The ending was one of the most moving to ever come out of the horror genre. Well worth your time! See it!

Catullus P. gave it a9:
An almost unbearably chilling film with surprising emotional heft and humanity, which makes this a highly original entry in the thriller genre. Scary, yes, but heartbreaking, compassionate and sad as well. The cast--especially the mother--the direction, the gorgeous photography, the music--are all first class. The Orphanage succeeds brilliantly with tropes that are familiar to the genre. Like a great song, it contains many familiar chords and notes and yet is put together in such a way that makes you feel as if you're seeing it for the first time. I can't imagine what it must take to pull something like this off. Those looking for cheap thrills and gore won't find it here. This movie requires an attention span above 9 years old.

[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Screw you, Steve. You don't know what a good film is. Sure it coulda been shorter and characters coulda been developed more. But it is scarier than any other film I've ever seen. So Steve, go to hell, and cry like the little bitch you are.

Luiz gave it a9:
Fantastic! The movie captures the attention from the first minute till it´s brilliant ending. A must see!

David gave it a10:
This was an excellent movie even though when you stand back and look it is really just a haunted house pic. The movie maker that can get a jump from an audience from a simple slamming door like this did is the new Hitchcock.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use