Head-On
Metascore
78 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 33 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 32 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 33
  3. Negative: 0 out of 33
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    100
    Impeccably made, uncompromising in its implacable vision of the deranging power of love, sex and controlled substances, this savage and staggering film knows how to take our breath away.
  2. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    100
    Not about crashing into walls or crashing into other people. It's about crashing into yourself and living to tell the tale.
  3. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    88
    It's a brutally convincing movie about two hell-bent young Turkish-German lovers dancing on the edge of destruction in a Hamburg underworld of drugs and casual sex. Yet it's also compassionate and even tender.
  4. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    88
    The love that heals and the love that kills are one and the same in the exhilarating Head-On, Fatih Akin's overgrown dead-end-kid romance for live-wire adults.
  5. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    90
    In its breathlessly claustrophobic way the movie is vital and passionate, and lit with a lyric beauty that washes over love scenes and violent acts alike.
  6. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    90
    Akin's raw, powerful, multileveled movie takes us places we never expected to go.
  7. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Debra Birnbaum
    88
    An intoxicating, heartbreaking Turkish-German drama that's already won a slew of awards from international film festivals.

User Reviews

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User Score
9.0 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 27 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. Diezmartinez
    10
    Un inclasificable melodrama sobre un turco, un vago sin oficio ni beneficio, que se casa con una desequilibrada y suicida mujer turca, con el fin de que ella gane su independencia y abandone el conservador hogar familiar. Ambientada en Alemania y con un seco desenlace en Estambul, Contra la Pared inicia como comedia de enredos, tiene ribetes de comedia romántica y continúa con una brutal serie de acontecimientos, tan sorpresivos como desarmantes en su cruda realidad… Full Review »
  2. FrankO
    9
    This is a strange film but I love movies that are off-beat, off kilter a bit. Akin does a great job of creating sympathetic characters but I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. I like being the observer in this film, watching Cahit and Sibel learn to be with each other, with all its pluses and minuses. Not a film just for anyone.… Full Review »
  3. HarkanwarA.
    8
    Excellent love-sex-hate drama.
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