DVD
Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade
Recent DVD/Video Releases
60
9
xx
Across the Hall
56
Adam
37
Amelia
73
Amreeka
35
Babysitters, The
70
Big Fan
57
Boys Are Back, The
81
Bright Star![]()
71
Bronson
60
Brothers at War
55
Brothers Bloom, The
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
64
Che
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
54
Dare
68
Departures
19
Downloading Nancy
55
Endgame
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
27
Gamer
50
Give Me Your Hand
46
Halloween II
73
House of the Devil, The
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
17
I Hate Valentine's Day
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
83
In the Loop![]()
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
41
Little Ashes
80
Lorna's Silence
33
Love Happens
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
xx
Ministers, The
67
Moon
59
More Than a Game
49
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
28
Pandorum
68
Paranormal Activity
85
Passing Strange![]()
63
Perfect Getaway, A
44
Peter and Vandy
54
Pontypool
35
Post Grad
30
Saw VI
79
Serious Man, A
36
Serious Moonlight
76
Soul Power
40
Spiral
39
St. Trinian's
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
47
Time Traveler's Wife
43
Tru Loved
61
Trucker
47
Weather Girl
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Lilya 4-Ever
EMAILPRINTNewmarket Film Group

Universal acclaim
Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 25 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Foreign
Written by: Lukas Moodysson
Directed by: Lukas Moodysson
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 18, 2003
Running Time: 109 minutes, Color
Origin: Denmark / Sweden
Language(s): Russian / German / Swedish (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: R for strong sexual content, a rape scene, drug use and language
Starring Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharsky, Lyubov Agapova, Liliya Shinkaryova, Elina Benenson, Pavel Ponomaryov, Tomas Neumann, and Anastasiya Bedredinova
Set in contemporary Russia, this film recounts 13-year-old Lilya's struggle to survive the grim streets.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A Hole in My Heart Show Me Love Together
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Light entertainment, this is not. Unforgettable and challenging cinema, it is.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
It's almost too devastating for words, yet never less than compelling and heartbreakingly affecting.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The most remarkable achievement of the film is its presentation of Lilya's story as both an archetypal case study and a personal drama whose spunky central character you come to care about so deeply that you want to cry out a warning at each step toward her ruination.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Lilya's struggle to make a life for herself is both heartbreaking and heart-stirring.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
It is Akinshina's presence and performance that make the pedestrian story heart-wrenching. She is pretty, responsive, reflective. Without the slightest strain, she convinces us of the beauty and pathos and hope within Lilya.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
As with "Together," Moodysson has pulled off a staggering dramatic coup, and again we are forced to ask: How does he do it? [21 & 28 April 2003, p.194]
LA Weekly Ernest Hardy
Lilya is the more genuinely unsettling film because Moodysson seems to actually know something of what it is to take and stumble beneath a crushing blow. You feel that here. And you feel it for days after.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
I can't think of another good movie this year that's as tough to watch as Moodysson's, but, then, I can't think of very many movies that are as good.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
If you're tired of false holiday cheer, Lilya 4-Ever will provide a corrective to the spiritual eggnog force-fed to us all season. The climax takes place during Christmas, though one that would make Tiny Tim grateful for his crutch and cold chimney corner.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Lukas Moodysson, a young Swedish director, crafts a stunner of a film out of familiar turf.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
Lilya is portrayed by Oksana Akinshina, who gives a dynamic, heartbreaking performance... She was wonderful in ["Brothers"], but is even more astonishing in Lilya 4-Ever.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
What's remarkable as we watch Lilya's plunge (and the brief, false rays of light that illuminate it) is how real Moodysson makes her plight, how intensely he makes us empathize with Lilya.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Forget "Irreversible," this is the season's most piercingly feel-bad movie.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Akinshina and Bogucharskij are remarkable together, and Moodysson once again demonstrates a sophisticated visual skill matched only by his innate understanding of the adolescent heart.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Terrific filmmaking, but it's hard to leave Moodysson's picture without feeling much of anything except hopelessness. Utterly.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Doesn't derive its power from the turning wheels of plot suspense but from the simple act of looking and not blinking.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This grim Danish-Swedish production is socially revealing and artistically creative, both coldly realistic and infused with compassion for its heroine and her youth culture.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie, written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, has the directness and clarity of a documentary, but allows itself touches of tenderness and grief.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
What it became is essentially one long free-fall from destitution to despair.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Not without its own bleak integrity. But the movie wipes you out and leaves you with nothing, not even the feeling of exaltation that can be present in the most tragic works of art.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rich Cline
Amazingly realistic and engaging drama about society punctuated with both humor and grittiness.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
a despairing movie that you can't look away from, though you'll wish you could.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The result is grimly "effective," but it made me long for Hollywood junk.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Colin E. gave it a10:
Riveting and powerful study of one girls journey from poverty and abandonment to life as a sex slave. Will impact all but the most cynical & hard hearted viewer, while telling one of the most important stories of the past decade. The issue of pedaling young girls for profit is a story that should be told in every high school.
Yael S. gave it an8:
is been almost 3 years since I've seen it and i still cant get over it. it goes to your soul, and plants itself there and like an internet virus comes up every now and then to shock and shake again. please watch it. you need to know this stuff.
M. Daye gave it a10:
If there is a more frightening and effective portrayal of a young girl's slow downfall, I've yet to see it.
Himu R. gave it a10:
This Is One Splendid Movie.It Must Be Shared With Everybody.
Dan C. gave it a9:
Not easy to watch, but Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) and Volodya (Artiom Bogucharski) share such a warm, genuine rapport that there is some redemption to be found, if only in their all too fleeting moments together. Immensely compelling. Akinshina is a wonder.
Mark B. gave it a10:
Intelligent people with taste will love this movie. It reluctantly and sadly stole my heart. Rule of thumb: if someone can't spell "too" or "instead", don't listen to their review.
John M gave it a10:
The best movie of 2003, not to mention the most important.
