Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Passion of the Christ, The
Newmarket Film Group


6.0

based on 43 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 642 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for sequences of graphic violence

Starring James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci, Hristo Jivkov, Hristo Shopov, Rosalinda Celentano, Francesco Cabras, and Claudia Gerini

A depiction of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ as he is crucified in Jerusalem.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Mel Gibson Benedict Fitzgerald
DIRECTED BY:	Mel Gibson
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 31, 2004 Video: August 31, 2004 Theatrical: February 25, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	120 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	Aramaic / Latin / Hebrew (with English subtitles)

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

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This is not a sermon or a homily, but a visualization of the central event in the Christian religion. Take it or leave it.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Gibson has made a big, bold, nightmarishly beautiful film not just about the dawn of the Christian faith, but about the awful tendency of human communities (wherever and whenever in the world they may exist) toward self-preservation, intolerance and mob rule.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A gripping, powerful motion picture -- arguably the most forceful depiction of Jesus' death ever to be committed to film. It leaves an indelible imprint on the psyche; viewers of this movie may never look at a crucifix in quite the same way.

Variety Todd McCarthy

If an age produces the renditions of classic stories that reflect those times, then The Passion of the Christ, which is violent, contentious, emotional, extreme and highly proficient, must be the Jesus movie for this era.

Time Richard Corliss

A serious, handsome, excruciating film that radiates total commitment.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Powerfully moving and fanatically obtuse in equal doses. The typical star rating doesn't apply, because scenes range from classic to poor and all stops in between.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A highly personal, provocative and in some ways riveting vision with an inspired performance by Jim Caviezel as Jesus.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's a strange kind of spiritual movie -- one that aims for the gut more often than the heart.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Tempting as it may be to dismiss Mel Gibson as a glorified pain freak, dressing up a martyrdom fantasy in Aramaic and Latin, it would be more accurate, I think, to say that the filmmaker, a Catholic fundamentalist, presents his torture-racked vision of Jesus' last 12 hours on earth as a sacred form of shock therapy.

USA Today Claudia Puig

There is enlightenment -- even stark poetry -- in The Passion.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Stunning in its violence and fascinating in its ironbound focus.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's not the most flattering depiction of Jews I've seen. Still, The Passion of the Christ is something of a masterpiece, terrible to behold, unfit for children, certainly, but very much the work of a director in the throes of his own distinct passion.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The main message of this drama is driven home with emotional hammer blows.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

More spirit and grace and less blood and guts may be what Passion needs.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Seems to be exactly the movie Mel Gibson wanted to make as an abiding profession of his traditionalist Catholic faith. On that score it is a success.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Even within what often looks like a self-indulgent exercise in humiliation, pain and gratuitous gore, there is no denying the moments of genuine and powerful feeling in The Passion of the Christ -- some of which, by the way, evoke Jesus's most profound teachings of Jewish principles.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film is never dull -- no mean feat, given that it spends two hours telling a story whose end is widely known -- and features performances that range from coarsely effective to phenomenal.

Empire Ian Nathan

A tormented movie about torment; loopy, over-reaching and occasionally suspicious. Simultaneously, it is a daring artistic endeavour.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Controversial, yet undeniably powerful.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Mel Gibson may have changed the face of cinema forever. I think he has: He's made the first true Jesusploitation flick, a picture that, despite its self-righteous air of grave religiosity, is barely spiritual at all.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Too much Good Friday and not enough Easter Sunday. Emphasizing Jesus' agony over His ecstasy, Gibson has delivered a blood-drenched epic more stunning for its brutal violence than for its depiction of the calvary.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The Passion of the Christ should have left audiences in a state of exaltation. Instead it just leaves audiences exhausted.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Gibson's intense concentration on the scourging and whipping of the physical body virtually denies any metaphysical significance to the most famous half-day in history.

Newsweek David Ansen

Instead of being moved by Christ's suffering, or awed by his sacrifice, I felt abused by a filmmaker intent on punishing an audience, for who knows what sins.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

In effect, aspects of Gibson's creative makeup -- his career-long interest in martyrdom and the yearning for dramatic conflict that make him an excellent actor, coupled with his belief in the Gospels' literal truth -- have sideswiped this film. What is left is a film so narrowly focused as to be inaccessible for all but the devout.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Expertly made, thanks largely to Jim Caviezel's fervent portrayal of Jesus and Caleb Deschanel's skillful camera work. But the film contains little to learn from, unless one is unfamiliar with basic Christian history.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Did it move me? And the answer is no. I thought it has a certain ghoulish, voyeuristic fascination, but I found it strangely remote and uninvolving on both emotional and spiritual levels.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

On its own, apart from whatever beliefs a viewer might bring to it, The Passion of the Christ never provides a clear sense of what all of this bloodshed was for, an inconclusiveness that is Mr. Gibson's most serious artistic failure.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

X-ploitative though it may be, the spectacle of a man beaten and tortured to death seeks to be an object of contemplation. Serious questions are raised.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

It's too turgid to awe the nonbelievers, too zealous to inspire and often too silly to take seriously, with its demonic hallucinations that look like escapees from a David Lynch film; I swear I couldn't find the devil carrying around a hairy-backed midget anywhere in the text I read.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It isn't just the violence that is overplayed. There is so much creepy-Gothic Sturm und Drang in The Passion that at times it seems as if Clive Barker should get credit for the story along with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Film Threat Jay Bliznick

Who is this film for? It’s for the Christian followers who haven’t really read their scripture.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

What I do know is that I was gripped for a while by the strength of Mr. Gibson's filmmaking, only to be repelled and eventually excluded by his literalist insistence on excruciation. There is watching in horror, and there is watching in horror.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The $25 million of his own that Gibson is said to have put into this film may be conscience money, and the savagery in the picture may--consciously or not--be Gibson's way of saying that violence is not always valueless.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Gibson mounts a convincing crucifixion, but his victim is the audience. The Passion of the Christ aims its metallic cat-o'-nine-tails at the viewers' nerves.

The New Yorker David Denby

By embracing the Roman pageant so openly, using all the emotional resources of cinema, Gibson has cancelled out the redemptive and transfiguring power of art. [1 March 2004, p. 84]

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

While it fails to shed significant new light on its subject, Gibson's film and the all-Jesus-all-the-time attention from the media it's attracted do tell us something somewhat disconcerting about the state of American culture: That the way to make a religion based on love and forgiveness relevant today is to turn it into violent entertainment.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II. It is sickening.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The visual big top is the scourging and the crucifixion -- again and again, Gibson returns to the blood-letting. Again and again, we're exposed to the clinical repetition of a single act, until an alleged act of passion comes to seem boring and passionless. Is that not a definition of pornography?

Premiere Glenn Kenny

From my perspective, the film's anti-Semitism is implicit rather than programmatic, and, in the film's current form, a little sneaky.

Slate David Edelstein

This is a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie -- The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre -- that thinks it's an act of faith.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Gibson makes sure that no blow remains unfelt, and his approach can't help but stir the body, but he never touches the soul.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

If I were a Christian, I'd be appalled to have this primitive and pornographic bloodbath presume to speak for me.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 642 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
I was bought to tears. It was very accurate. Everytime Jesus was hit...I thougt to myself--That was for my sins. Thank You Mel.

Matthew M gave it a9:
First of all I am very disappointed in some of the comments being posted on this board... just because you may not believe does NOT give you the right to attack Catholicism or any other faith. This movie was made to display, with excruciating detail, the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. This movie was not meant to be the "feel good movie of the year", but rather to show the pain that one man endured for the sake of our salvation. He endured that pain that we would not have to. I'm apologize to anyone who thinks that I am trying to preach my religious beliefs, but I am not.

Norma I. gave it a10:
This movie depicts some of the events that happened to Jesus Christ. It is in no way anti-semitic, Jesus came to die,so regardless of who killed him i.e Jew or otherwise. This film was beautifully made and it touches the soul,so for all those people who are saying it doesn't touch the soul, it is because you do not understand. This film is not about the violence, but about redemption and grace through the suffering of Christ. Jesus said father forgive them for they know not what they do, with this he meant the Romans, Jews and every other persons today. So believe and be saved!

Alex F gave it a6:
I saw this movie when it came out on dvd i thought the film was okay in some areas it was amazing in others over the top. The actor playing Jesus and the other main characters (mary,peter,john etc.) did a great job in my opinion and the music and picture setting was amazing however this not a film to watch multiple times. This movie just shows us that jesus went through a lot for us and died for our sins but i felt it was and one message film which was love. Mel Gibson just showed jesus's last 12 hours and that's it. I would not watch it multiple times though i'd say watch it once. Overall this movie is definitely something of a masterpiece and will never be forgotten.

William M. gave it a10:
This film enables one to comprehend graphically the torture and agony that Jesus endured for ALL mankind.

Sheila D. gave it a5:
I have read quite a few of the comments. It's very much the case of you liked it or you didn't. I am a Christian but I found it left me slightly emotionless. But the boy tried his best. What I do find offensive is the crowd who didn't enjoy it are very free with their opinions. They feel they need to denigrate anybody who did enjoy it as a moron and that they are uneducated, numbskulls etc etc. Personnally I don't give a dam what you think of Christians or any other religion for that matter, but don't try and make out we are stupid and you are they great informed of this world. Your are not. Every time you open your mouth you exhibit to the whole world what a pathetic numbskull you are. Keep the gob shut and maybe someone might think you have a brain.

Paul A gave it a10:
One of the most moving movies ever made. The critics are wrong on this one. It's not the type of movie you can watch every day because of the violence. But it it's accurate and moving. Once you see it you will never forget it.

Passion of the Christ, The Newmarket Film Group

Passion of the Christ, The
Newmarket Film Group