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The Passenger (re-release)
Metascore
90 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
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  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    100
    Still packs a wallop. It's also a movie with no easy passage to its dark heart.
  2. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    100
    A visually dazzling mood piece.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    100
    A rare chance to see a major cinematic work on the big screen.
  4. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    100
    Visually stunning adventure. (Review of Original Release)
  5. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    100
    What's most shocking about The Passenger 30 years later? Seeing Jack Nicholson at the lean, sardonic height of his youthful powers? Finding a Michelangelo Antonioni movie with an actual plot?
  6. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Phil Hall
    100
    Whereas "Cuckoo's Nest" is a brilliantly over-the-top accomplishment, The Passenger is more brilliant with the most effortless underplaying one can ever hope to witness on screen.
  7. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    100
    The film's final seven-minute shot is one of the great denouements in film history.
  8. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    100
    Antonioni's moviemaking panache and distinctive narrative rhythm rarely have seemed so enticing and satisfying.
  9. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Don Drucker
    100
    A masterpiece, one of Michelangelo Antonioni's finest works. (Review of Original Release)
  10. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    The Passenger isn't finally the masterpiece some have made it out to be, but it retains a singular intrigue: It's the first, and probably the last, thriller ever made about depression.
  11. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Vincent Canby
    90
    No other performer (Jack Nicholson) in an Antonioni film, except Jeanne Moreau in "La Notte," has so gracefully submitted to Mr. Antonioni and survived intact. (Review of Original Release)
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    90
    Nicholson plays the character with personal flair, as penetrating as Antonioni's handling of the film. (Review of Original Release)
  13. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    88
    The script, co-written by Antonioni and Peter Wollen, focuses on a TV journalist (a superb Jack Nicholson).
  14. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    Intended as a thriller of sorts, although Antonioni is, as always, too deeply involved in the angst of his characters to bother much with the story. (Review of Original Release)
  15. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    83
    It's refreshing that something once considered terribly new and modern can still feel contemporary three decades later.
  16. Empire
    Reviewed by: David Parkinson
    80
    A bleak and moving drama with reflective performance from Jack Nicolson.
  17. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    80
    In casting Jack Nicholson as the jaded Anglo-American journalist who abandons his previous life during a trip to Africa and adopts a dangerous new identity, Antonioni was working with a more powerful and charismatic actor than he has before or since. The result is something like a glamorous thriller or a disaster film in slow motion.
  18. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    80
    The Passenger is a relic of that moment in international co-production when famous European auteurs hitched their wagons to hip and eager Hollywood stars.
  19. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    80
    A fascinating reflection of the era when it was made; but a starker indictment still of what film culture has become. In 1975, The Passenger was a night at the movies.
  20. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    50
    It reminds one of "The Constant Gardener," another globetrotting thriller bereft of thrills that looks more important in retrospect than on the screen. Certainly, one man's trash is another man's masterpiece, and more power to the viewer who can stick with this deadpan travelogue and make it to the ending that actually satisfies.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 29 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 19
  3. Negative: 7 out of 19
  1. DuncanK.
    10
    [***SPOILERS***] The Passenger stars Jack Nicholson as David Locke, a journalist who has reached a point of extreme frustration during the process of making a documentary. Fundamentally unhappy with his own life, he discovers a fellow hotel guest dead in his room and decides to abandon his identity and revive the corpse’s. To the hotel clerk Locke says, “I’d like to inquire about flights.” This of course has a double meaning. He is literally interested in flights, but he would also like to escape his past. The theme of identity and Locke’s name itself immediately recall the most essential writings of John Locke. He believed in the concept of the tabula rasa or blank slate and that it was our experiences that defined us as people. While responding to a comment that all places are the same, Nicholson’s character argues that it’s actually the people that are the same. That everyone conforms to a specific and rigid matrix of societal construction. This makes sense in terms of John Locke’s philosophy as the slate that is the human psyche is filled with these cultural archetypes. Nicholson’s character is desperate to escape this. He wants to be an individual, something new. Beyond this though, he wants to stay blank. In what is perhaps the film’s most joyous moment the Girl asks Locke what he’s running from. He tells her to turn her back to the front of the car. What occurs next is an instant of spontaneous elation as she watches the road rush away behind them. The interesting thing is that she is in fact watching the past during this moment. By facing her previous experience (which Locke refuses to do) she is happy. Locke is asked more than once whether he thinks a landscape is beautiful. In one case he answers no, in another he distractedly answers yes but doesn’t take the time to look around. He intentionally avoids absorbing beauty or new experience in an effort to remain in a constant state of rebirth. These themes are culminated in the story of the blind man towards the end. If I had any doubts about this merits of this film during its run time they were shattered by the final shot. It’s of such masterful technical merit that it’s almost hard to concentrate on what actually occurring on screen. As this seven minute shot ends it becomes clear that The Passenger is a haunting masterpiece that dissects the most cardinal notions of personal and social identity.… Full Review »
  2. balab.
    9
    One of the best film in cinematic narration
  3. StephenS.
    9
    Surely Antonioni and Nicholson could not possibly have imagined how well this film would serve their respective reputations a generation later! Cherish Schneider’s exact work, and relish the early Nicholson, acting not leering. His character takes on a big chance, ultimately a losing chance, by impulsively assuming a dead man’s identity. Antonioni too takes big chances, using story elements that now turn out to be a little dated, repeating his usual tropes of few people inhabiting great languid slabs of time and territory. Yet the poetic result is winning, unlike the disorder of his previous English-language piece Zabriskie Point. An object lesson here is that even the greatest artist needs an unplanned slice of luck and serendipity in order to create a lasting, coherent work of art.… Full Review »
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