Humanité
Metascore
77 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    Dumont's cinematic style is aggressively physical and philosophical at the same time. It irritates as many viewers as it inspires, but it prompts more thought than ordinary movies ever do.
  2. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    91
    A beautiful and compassionate work, at once stark, sensory and spiritually grasping, that challenges us to forgive even the most monstrous sins.
  3. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    90
    It's a haunting, hypnotic film that exerts an escalating grip on the heart and the conscience.
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  4. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Henry Cabot Beck
    90
    Audiences willing to wade knee deep in the muck and mire of the human abyss are advised to seek out Humanité at the local arthouse.
  5. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    90
    A film of stunning impact.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    90
    You probably won't feel comfortable when Humanité is over, but as you leave the theater you will feel more alive than when you entered.
  7. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    90
    Dumont's film is unfinished in the sense that some paintings are.
  8. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    Not an easy film and is for those few moviegoers who approach a serious movie almost in the attitude of prayer.
  9. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    88
    A harsh, spellbinding tale.
  10. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    88
    Staggering, gorgeously ambiguous.
  11. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    84
    Dumont's movie has virtually nothing wrong with it -- aside from the fact that it drives people crazy. Take the leap, but expect no answers. Just like life, as they say.
  12. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    80
    Confidently absurd.
  13. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    75
    Humanite isn't like any other film: It's uncompromising, eerily affecting and wildly unresolved.
  14. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    75
    It ought to be seen, because it's a work of moral and spiritual mystery.
  15. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    67
    Frustrating, tedious and yet often compelling.
  16. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Hanna Brown
    63
    Maddeningly pretentious and often slow to the point of tedium, Humanite is also hauntingly original and truly strange.
  17. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Desmond Ryan
    63
    While Dumont's movie has its striking scenes, it is doomed to a sense of lethargy and inertia by the kind of people it ponders and the context in which they are placed.
  18. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Other - Staff
    50
    Under that small but growing category of movies that break the mold but that no one but a masochist could sit through is Humanité.
  19. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    50
    This curiously empty film was awarded the Jury Prize at the 1997 Cannes film festival.
  20. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    50
    If only the whole thing didn't collapse in on itself, and quickly become a parody of artistic reach and terminal folly.
  21. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    40
    Don't ask us why this minimalist drama won prizes last year at Cannes or why it is getting raves in its U.S. release.

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