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Time for Drunken Horses, A
Shooting Gallery

Time for Drunken Horses, A reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 78 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
10.0 out of 10
based on 24 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA 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)


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 
LANGUAGE(S): Farsi / Kurdish (with English subtitles) 

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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90
Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
It's difficult to imagine a more eloquent tribute.
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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.
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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.
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80
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A film of simplicity and power, beautifully shot and effortlessly acted by nonprofessionals.
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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.
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80
LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
A central work in the new, boldly politicized Iranian cinema.
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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.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A disturbing and forceful drama.
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75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Brief, spare and heartbreaking.
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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.
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75
Miami Herald Curtis Morgan
A wrenching film.
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75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
In its austere visual understatement rests a ton of emotional power.
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70
TV Guide Ken Fox
Truly in a class by itself.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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60
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Single-minded, sometimes harrowing.
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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.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!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.

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