Tangerine
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: July 10, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinNov 15, 2015
It radiates a candour, immediacy and tongue-scalding sex appeal that a bigger budget would have only smothered. Read full review
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirJul 21, 2015
This is a gorgeous, timely and possibly profound human comedy, and if there’s no disentangling the medium from the message that’s because both are powerful and ambiguous. Read full review
100
Time OutDavid EhrlichJul 21, 2015
A saturated picture that courses with the raw energy of found footage while still feeling artfully composed, a movie that punches with the skittering violence of dubstep but careens through L.A. with the unbridled freedom of bebop jazz. Read full review
100
SlateDana StevensJul 21, 2015
A sneaky slice-of-life indie that comes on all casual and cinéma-verité in the early scenes, then slowly coalesces into a romantic comedy as intricately constructed as any door-slamming stage farce. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisJul 16, 2015
This is sublime filmmaking, a textbook example of how indies can tell groundbreaking stories in a way that Hollywood simply can’t match. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 9, 2015
What’s extraordinary about Tangerine is that it’s everything an entertaining, old-fashioned, mainstream Hollywood comedy should be but no longer is. That nowadays you have to get this kind of stuff via Sundance from directors using iPhones is a drag — the wrong kind. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 9, 2015
Tangerine encompasses dizzying multitudes — it’s a neo-screwball chase flick with a dash of Rainer Werner Fassbinder — but mostly, movingly, it is a female-friendship movie about two people who each started life with an XY chromosome set. Read full review
100
Screen DailyJohn HazeltonJul 7, 2015
Tangerine paints a portrait of transgender sex workers and their clients that pulses with raunchy energy and compassionate humour. It’s a bracing slice of American indie film-making. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyJoe McGovernJul 7, 2015
Tangerine is touching for its non-condescending stance toward working girls and the spirit of the sidewalk. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnJan 31, 2015
Baker once again manages to match underrepresented faces in American cinema with material that lets their personalities shine. Read full review
91
The PlaylistKatie WalshJan 31, 2015
Utilizing underseen subjects, [Baker] captures their world in a thoughtful and artful way, and it also happens to be a damn fun ride. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesRebecca KeeganJul 9, 2015
With a witty and efficient script by director Sean Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch, Tangerine peels back the curtain on a fascinating Los Angeles microculture. Read full review
90
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJul 7, 2015
In the early minutes you might not be sure what you're watching. Tangerine's a comedy, of course, laced with rambunctious, exuberantly ragged dialogue. But by the end, Baker and his actors have led us to a place beyond comedy — you may still be laughing, but your breath catches a little on the way out. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 31, 2015
The film's smart craftsmanship is ultimately less noteworthy than its humanizing, prejudice-challenging immersion into the lives of people who inhabit L.A.'s low-end drug and sex industry. Read full review
90
VarietyJustin ChangJan 31, 2015
Writer-director Sean Baker’s sun-scorched, street-level snapshot is a work of rueful, matter-of-fact insight and unapologetically wild humor that draws a motley collection of funny, sad and desperate individuals into its protagonists’ orbit. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJul 24, 2015
Baker gets great, sly, unforced performances from his two leads, but it's not all a rollicking good time: There are moments of quietude, inquietude, moments when a sense of wariness and loneliness settles over the women. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 9, 2015
A groundbreaking film that leaves you in stitches while quietly breaking your heart. Read full review
88
New York PostSara StewartJul 8, 2015
The two working girls at the center of Tangerine are played by engaging newcomers: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez as the freshly out-of-jail Sin-Dee Rella, and Mya Taylor as her best friend Alexandra. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJul 17, 2015
Baker's previous films "Take Out" and "Starlet" have focused on populations generally treated with disdain by mainstream society -- illegal immigrants and porn performers, respectively. With Tangerine he continues to prove that by depicting these characters in all their flaws and majesty, movies can inspire awareness of our shared humanity. And make us laugh. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJul 8, 2015
It’s the movie’s quietest, softest moments that register most strongly, be it Alexandra’s low-key performance of Victor Herbert’s “Toyland” to an almost empty bar, or the final scene, which finds her and Sin-Dee alone in a Laundromat at the end of a long, bad night. Read full review
80
CineVuePatrick GambleNov 15, 2015
Poetic realism for a digital age, Tangerine also shares a lot of qualities with the cinema of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. There's no cheap manipulation here and Baker's characters never come across as victims. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 15, 2015
There’s real energy. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 23, 2015
Rodriguez and Taylor are terrific. Their confidence is infectious, yet they never let us forget the challenges their lives offer. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 9, 2015
The film is clearly not for everyone; sometimes it wasn’t for me. But it’s steadfastly nonjudgmental and wonderfully tender toward two searchers for new versions of old-fashioned love. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisJul 22, 2015
Tangerine’s greatest accomplishment, however, lies with director Baker, who filmed the movie using an iPhone 5S. It’s an amazing achievement – the fluidity of the camerawork is exhilarating at times, the intimacy of the close-ups sometimes unsettling. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonAug 6, 2015
Although the story of Sin-Dee and Alexandra might have benefited from a bit more structure, it’s a window into a world of which many people are unaware — but a world that has its share of dreamers. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 16, 2015
As one character observes in Tangerine, Los Angeles is “a beautifully wrapped lie.” Baker has created a fitting homage to artifice and the often tawdry, tender realities that lie beneath. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJul 10, 2015
As written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch and directed by Baker, it's assured and immensely likable, and truly independent in story and style. Read full review
75
TheWrapInkoo KangJul 9, 2015
The film bustles along through a series of reveals – a storytelling technique that can lose an audience’s sympathy or suspension of disbelief pretty fast, but which works flawlessly here because the filmmakers and the performers know exactly who their characters are and what kind of world they live in. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 7, 2015
A feisty, funny, down-and-dirty farce as nasty as a Supreme Court dissent, as timely as a Jenner magazine cover. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezJun 28, 2015
Its triumph is primarily a matter of style, a visionary revelation every bit as expressionistic as its main character's electric sense of shade. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJul 7, 2015
Baker revels in the power of clichés and the generic energy of his low-fi cinematography, which is done with a cell phone. The results are picturesque and anecdotal. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJul 16, 2015
Subtlety and irony are not among the film’s virtues. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJordan HoffmanJul 9, 2015
Tangerine offers a warts-and-all depiction of a subculture seldom treated with respect by straight society. The movie handles it in a sincere way that’s entertaining, too. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 18, 2015
Like the rest of the film, it's has its laughs and it has its emotion, just not enough of either. Read full review
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