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100With Amour, it's the rare feeling of watching a masterpiece unfold.
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100The story is so masterfully told that one can't help but be enthralled.
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100Amour arrives with plaudits and praise. But this is not hype, it is all deserved. This is a masterpiece.
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100This is the sort of small, intimate drama about unpleasant subject matter Hollywood rarely deals with, but Haneke isn't worried about turning off his audience, because death is something everyone has in common. It fascinates us, the way it also scares us.
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100What happens between two people? Only the chemistry that keeps us from stumbling through the chaos by ourselves. Is that an illusion, too? Amour says it doesn't much matter. There is no dignity in life except love.
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100More arduously, Riva is obliged to act out the physical decline while still registering a full spectrum of emotions. Remarkably, she does it all, even when reduced to communicating with her eyes alone. Hers is, in every sense of the phrase, a nakedly honest performance.
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100Amour is a must-see film that not everyone must see, at least right now.
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100Small, sure and stunningly acted, this is a picture of exacting control.
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100An unexpected kind of masterpiece by Haneke, whose films have included the enigmatic "Caché" and the earlier Golden Palm winner "The White Ribbon." We don't expect such unflinching seriousness, such profundity from Haneke.
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100In Amour, these two actors show us what love is, what it really looks like, and what it may, at its most secret moments, demand.
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100This is an unforgettable love story set at the close of day, as tragic and beautiful in its way as "Tristan und Isolde," and a portrait of the impossible beauty and fragility of life that will yield new experiences to every viewer and every viewing.
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100Michael Haneke's French-language Amour, a perfect film about intertwined lives, proceeds at its own pace, and breathes so deeply that it takes your own breath away.
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100All great films have imagination; this one also has the sense of experience.
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Dec 18, 2012100Magnificent in its simplicity and its relentless honesty about old age, illness and dying, Michael Haneke's Amour is a deliberately torturous watch.
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Dec 18, 2012100In the history of movies about love, Amour shall last forever.
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100A masterpiece about life, death and everything in between.
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100A director known for the icy classicism and genre subversion of films like "Funny Games" and "Caché," Haneke has a pitilessness that could not be more perfect for Amour, which would collapse at any whiff of sentimentality.
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100Small victories that turn into defeats, long walks to gain little ground, little wounds that get deeper every day - growing old is a war, and movies rarely go there. Michael Haneke's amazing, dignified Amour is the exception.
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100Something sacred passes between Trintignant and Riva. The actress's eyes signal deep awareness as the sounds coming out of her mouth become animalistic.
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100A perfect storm of a motion picture, with an icy, immaculate director unexpectedly taking on deeply emotional subject matter.
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100Don't let Amour join the legion of "Best Films You Never Saw." I urge you to share its sweetness and wisdom, and learn something.
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100The icy message may be that love is not a consolation as we face death. Rather the reverse. Love will give your death meaning, but make it no less unbearable.
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100Michael Haneke's Palme D'Or winner is uncomfortable, uncompromising, unflinching... and utterly unmissable. Old age may not be a reality you wish to confront, but you must see this film.
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100A compassionate, masterful work that deservedly won Haneke a second Palme d'Or after "The White Ribbon's" 2009 victory. Best to avoid on a first date, though.
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91While what's on screen is unsparing and clinically presented, the underlying, almost invisible humanity and artistry of the film inspire rather than depress.
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91Although not exactly heartwarming, Amour has a more contained vision of human relationships than Haneke's previous films without sacrificing its bleak foundation. It's his most conventional movie about death -- and the most poignant.
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90Riva, meanwhile, is astounding, not just in the way she portrays the physical manifestation of her decline, particularly later in the film, but also earlier, when she knows she is fading and does not wish to do so. The look in her eyes, the sadness in her face, is crushing.
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90What makes Amour so strong and clear is that it allows Haneke to anatomize his own severity.
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90At his provocative best, though - in his brilliant, gorgeous 2009 film "The White Ribbon," a study of the roots of fascism in domestic tyranny, and now in Amour - Haneke implicates us in the full range of human capacity.
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90Considering Haneke's confrontational past, this poignantly acted, uncommonly tender two-hander makes a doubly powerful statement about man's capacity for dignity and sensitivity when confronted with the inevitable cruelty of nature.
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89Love means being helpmates throughout all of life's stages. Death is part of love's bargain, and Haneke lays this fact bare.
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88The superb Trintignant and the Oscar-nominated Riva – who would win, in a just world – embody once-vigorous people in inevitable decline. Yet as another critic has said, the film is sad without being depressing.
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88This may sound depressing and, in a sense it is, but these things are part of life and Haneke conveys them with a simplicity that is heartbreaking.
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88These two glam stars of French cinema – Riva in 1959's "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and Trintignant in 1966's "A Man and a Woman" – give performances of breathtaking power and beauty. Prepare for an emotional wipeout.
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83Amour is nevertheless the work of a filmmaker who isn't afraid to ask the big questions about human nature, and coming out of Amour it seems the director has hope for us yet.
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80Amour is a far cry from the warm-and-fuzzy version of love that most people are probably looking for on Valentine's Day. This movie is more of a slap than a hug. But reality hurts sometimes - just like love does.
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Dec 26, 201280Audiences smart and tough enough to seek the film out will have their own reward.
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80In the quietly devastating Amour, Haneke's cool, dispassionate gaze feels, for the first time, something like love.
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80It's not an easy sit; we're never let off the hook with golden-hued memories or belated bits of wisdom. Maybe this is love after all.
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75Amour is also unforgettable and one of a kind, two hours of torment that, in the end, you will probably not regret.
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Dec 12, 201270For all that it is, as promised, about love, it's also a subtly punishing affair that grinds you into the ground as you watch an elderly couple deal with one member's slow deterioration of health and sanity.
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67Because of its subject matter, and because of the actors, it's impossible to watch this film without being moved. But a martinet is running the show.
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50Haneke remains, by his rules, infallible. So what? A movie in which incident is as spare as it is in Amour can certainly be great; a movie in which ideas and feelings are so sparse cannot.
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Nov 12, 201250This isn't the work of a newly moral or humanistic filmmaker, but another ruse by the same unscrupulous showman whose funny games have been beguiling us for years.