Metascore
91 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 20
  2. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. You may not like Beau Travail - which is, after all, a quintessential "critic's film" - but I think you'll have to admit it's been almost perfectly executed.
  2. 100
    It easily is the most beautiful picture released in America so far this year, perhaps one of the most beautiful films ever made.
  3. (Denis's) visual style is hypnotic, rapturous, and she makes barren landscapes look gorgeous, hard men look vulnerable.
  4. 100
    Unique and unforgettable.
  5. 100
    A movie so tactile in its cinematography, inventive in its camera placement, and sensuous in its editing that the purposefully oblique and languid narrative is all but eclipsed.
  6. Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    100
    For anyone who wants to see wildly inventive, peerless filmmaking that's oblivious to market-place formulas, Beau Travail is an absolute must-see.
  7. A film that has the sweep and esthetic power of a full-length ballet.
  8. 90
    Claire Denis' baffling and exhilarating "Billy Budd" smolders with heat-blasted rhythms and supercharged acting.
  9. Reviewed by: Brendan Bernhard
    90
    Leaving the theater, you feel not only as if you've been in a foreign country, but as if you'd gone there inside someone else's skin.
  10. 90
    A lovely piece of work.
  11. A stunning work of beauty, mystery, contemplation, and grit -- and like sands through the desert hourglass, these are the days of our lives.
  12. "Chocolat" was just a warmup for the stunning display of the male form against National Geographic settings in her new Beau Travail.
  13. A ruggedly beautiful landscape of desert and sea provides a dramatic setting for a psychological drama told with the utmost rigor--and unabashed eroticism.
  14. Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    70
    Denis dispenses with most of Melville's hefty Christian symbolism in favor of the story's other great theme -- repressed homoerotic desire.
  15. 66
    The characters are barely characters, the story barely a story, and the elliptical filmmaking style that so besots Denis' many fans could drive you to drink.
  16. So minimalist in characterization and dialogue that the plot all but evaporates -- and so does any dramatic power.
  17. 50
    If only Beau Travail had a more dramatic edge, this nicely done film wouldn't have felt so long.
User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 16 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 11
  3. Negative: 4 out of 11
  1. JeffA
    1
    Ugh, another pretentious, boring "art" film. Truly lame. What is it with the french? I see so many of the worst films coming from there.
  2. Yvan
    10
    A stunning, melancholy film. Easily one of the best of the decade.
  3. JohnM
    10
    Beautiful. And that ending..... elusive, yet unforgettable. One of the best concluding sequences I've ever seen.