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
64 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.

Time for Drunken Horses, A

EMAILPRINTShooting Gallery

Time for Drunken Horses, A reviews
78
10.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: Bahman Ghobadi

Directed by: Bahman Ghobadi

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 27, 2000

Running Time: 80 minutes, Color

Origin: France / Iran

Summary

RATING: Not rated

Starring Ayoub Ahmadi, Amaneh Ekhtiar-dini, Madi Ekhtiar-dini, and Nezhad Ekhtiar-dini

When the youngest boy of a destitute Iranian Kurdish family suffers from a terminal illness, his young siblings struggle to pay for a life-saving operation. (Shooting Gallery)

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

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Deeper and richer in humanity than all but a handful of the American films released this year.

Read Full Review >
100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The tale is simply told but stunningly photographed and superbly acted in the best tradition of modern Iranian cinema.

Read Full Review >
100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Presents us with characters of such humanity and dignity that it begins to seem obscene that until now we haven't exactly given all that much thought to the Kurds.

Read Full Review >
91

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The nonprofessional cast of Bahman Ghobadi's remarkable, slow, rough edged feature reveals a simple, piercing grimness and determination framed by the gray, icy landscape of Iranian Kurdistan.

Read Full Review >
91

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A profoundly anxious picture that from its first frame holds you, clenched, never able to let go, even after its unresolved coda.

Read Full Review >
90

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

It's difficult to imagine a more eloquent tribute.

Read Full Review >
90

Film.com Peter Brunette

It simultaneously wows you with the stark beauty of its images, a beauty that leads to another, related kind of truth that is equally crucial. It's not to be missed.

Read Full Review >
88

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Showing us a world through a child's eyes, A Time for Drunken Horses speaks so truthfully and well that it breaks the heart and scars the conscience.

Read Full Review >
80

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A film of simplicity and power, beautifully shot and effortlessly acted by nonprofessionals.

Read Full Review >
80

Chicago Reader Alissa Simon

More grim and less sentimental than other Iranian films featuring plucky children, this strikingly photographed work stresses the harshness of daily life in Iranian Kurdistan.

Read Full Review >
80

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

A central work in the new, boldly politicized Iranian cinema.

Read Full Review >
80

Variety Deborah Young

It is all the more heart-wrenching for being realistic. Its portrait of child labor brooks no sentimentality and no cliches.

Read Full Review >
75

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A disturbing and forceful drama.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Brief, spare and heartbreaking.

Read Full Review >
75

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The real hero here is Ghobadi, whose love and respect for the culture in which he was raised shines through every frame.

Read Full Review >
75

Miami Herald Curtis Morgan

A wrenching film.

Read Full Review >
75

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

In its austere visual understatement rests a ton of emotional power.

Read Full Review >
70

TV Guide Ken Fox

Truly in a class by itself.

Read Full Review >
70

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Because of its relentlessness, its crawling pace (the 77 minutes pass like 2 1/2 hours) and its sometimes confusing story, A Time for Drunken Horses may not be for every taste, but it's still an affecting, and in its way beautiful, movie.

Read Full Review >
67

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Ghobadi works squarely in the neorealist tradition of countrymen like former mentor Abbas Kiarostami, using nonprofessional actors and documentary technique to tell small, spare stories of the human condition through the eyes of children.

Read Full Review >
63

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Ghobadi (himself an Iranian Kurd) takes some gorgeous shots against the snow, but his storytelling is uneven and often slow.

Read Full Review >
63

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

The welcome hints at emotional excess are compromised by the blunt force of the movie's political point-making.

Read Full Review >
60

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Single-minded, sometimes harrowing.

Read Full Review >
50

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

In Bahman Ghobadi's heart-tugger about Kurdish orphans, those wide eyes are too often used as a manipulative device.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 10.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes

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

Robert M. gave it a 10:
A very heartbraking and sad story.

Robert F. gave it a 10:
The best foreign film I saw last year.

Zagros K. gave it a 10:
It is Just very true, sad , strong story. Well done Kak Bahman, you are a true KURDISH HERO. Well done.

Sonja gave it a 10:
I'll never see a more sensible work than this.

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