The Immigrant
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: May 16, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonMay 26, 2014
An astonishingly beautiful, irresistibly grim movie. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyMay 14, 2014
The visual and thematic palette immediately brings to mind Michael Cimino’s once-maligned "Heaven’s Gate" — except that The Immigrant accomplishes more in two hours than Heaven’s Gate did in nearly four. Read full review
100
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekMay 13, 2014
Gray has a knack for wrapping big themes into an intimate embrace, and The Immigrant feels both epic and fine-grained. Read full review
100
Time OutKeith UhlichMay 13, 2014
You may often find yourself second-guessing the film, questioning how—and if—it will all come together. But by the time of the intense and impassioned climax, a storm of emotion is ensured: a great movie rising before you like a delusion, like a dream. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMay 19, 2014
It’s richer than anything onscreen right now. It’s worth the pain. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMay 15, 2014
The film is earnestly and unabashedly melodramatic to an extent that may baffle audiences accustomed to clever, knowing historical fictions. But it also has a depth and purity of feeling that makes other movies feel timid and small by comparison. Read full review
90
The DissolveScott TobiasMay 15, 2014
What really sets The Immigrant apart is how urgent it feels. Historical dramas often have a reserve that comes with perspective, but nearly a full century removed from this story, Gray seems, if anything, more emotionally invested here than in his contemporary dramas. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMay 28, 2014
The Immigrant is two hours long, but I stayed even longer in my seat, through the credits, still in thrall to it all. The title is singular, but the scope is not so easily quantifiable. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereJun 5, 2014
Visually evokes Coppola’s "Godfather Part II" and Leone’s "Once Upon a Time in America," but in its utterly irony-free melodramatic sincerity also suggests a silent-era woman’s picture à la D.W. Griffith, King Vidor or G.W. Pabst. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 23, 2014
Marion Cotillard has made her share of unremarkable, if not remarkably bad, films. But when the French star, who won the Academy Award for her unearthly reincarnation of Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose", gets it right, the result is magic. Read full review
88
Washington PostJohn DeForeMay 22, 2014
Gray directs this handsome and evocative film with emotional restraint, making its archetypal title character a living individual whose moral journey is never simple. Read full review
88
Boston GlobePeter KeoughMay 22, 2014
The characters look as if they’d be more comfortable with intertitles than spoken dialogue. And the faces — Marion Cotillard as Ewa, the beleaguered Polish immigrant of the title, holds a close-up as well as Lillian Gish or Louise Brooks. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezOct 4, 2013
In its stripped-down realism and blistering fixation on its main character's grappling with life and mortality, the film is kin to Roberto Rossellini's collaborations with Ingrid Bergman. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 16, 2014
The Immigrant is reaching for the same thing that Fellini achieved in “La Strada” – the state of grace that arises between people who at first would seem to have nothing in common but desolation. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnMay 26, 2013
Gray's fifth directorial effort is a conflicting experience admirable and powerfully executed in parts, cold and meandering in others. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 26, 2013
The Immigrant is contained, restrained, thoughtful filmmaking that satisfies on nearly every level, except for the desire for a little chaos. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 22, 2014
The Immigrant is not exactly the feel-good hit of the summer, but it is a compelling tale of what, in the end, can only be called survival. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMay 17, 2014
The strength of Gray’s movie lies in showing the connection between people in a place without rules. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMay 15, 2014
Though the film is sometimes as fraught as the immigrant experience, in the end the ideas are so rich, the look so lovely, Ewa's journey so heartbreakingly real, even the flaws seem to suit it. Read full review
80
Film.comJordan HoffmanOct 6, 2013
Its final scenes and sublimely framed last, lingering shot are extraordinary. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 26, 2013
This rich, beautifully rendered film boasts an arrestingly soulful performance from Marion Cotillard. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 22, 2014
The Immigrant is not unlike a Prohibition-era “Taxi Driver,” with Cotillard as the apprentice hooker, Phoenix as the sweet-talking pimp and Jeremy Renner (playing the theater’s magician, Orlando) as the would-be savior. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 22, 2014
This is the first film Gray has made with a female protagonist — he wrote the part specifically for Cotillard — and he gives the character the same resilience and resourcefulness usually reserved in movies for men. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comDan CallahanMay 16, 2014
If we can accept it on its own terms, The Immigrant has many moments of exceptional power and rare delicacy. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 15, 2014
What sounds like undiluted melodrama with the hounds forever nipping at Ewa's heels is transformed by Gray into a mesmerizing meditation on the broken American promise. Read full review
70
TheWrapDiane GarrettMay 15, 2014
Gray does show some amusing facets of this world, such as prostitutes dressed up as society figures like the Rockefellers and Astors, for instance, but mostly The Immigrant is a bleak affair. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensMay 15, 2014
I wanted to fall under this movie’s spell as if watching one of those early 20th-century immigrant melodramas — instead, it felt like visiting a meticulously appointed but too-tidy historical museum. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 26, 2013
Enhanced by a splendidly atmospheric recreation of the Lower East Side, the intimately focused work is anchored by another superior performance by Marion Cotillard. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle SmithMay 14, 2014
Phoenix, who was so subtle in “Her” and brilliantly tortured in “The Master,” has lapsed back into the shouty bombast style of his “Gladiator” days, but his efforts to make the character seem layered are to little avail, especially given that Gray waits until the end to try to make him a tragic figure instead of merely a sleazy one. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigMay 15, 2014
Glimmers of a fascinating and lively period film surface and fade in the first half-hour of The Immigrant. What predominates is a dully morose, overheated and implausible story. Read full review
40
The New YorkerDavid DenbyMay 12, 2014
In this movie, Phoenix turns himself inside out, but Cotillard’s reserved performance doesn’t move us. Bruno advances in his confused way, Ewa resists, and, despite Jeremy Renner’s flickering presence, the movie becomes dour and repetitive. Looking at them, you finally think, Enough! Life must be elsewhere. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonDave CalhounMay 26, 2013
The Immigrant promises rich territory to explore, but in the execution it’s overly stately, dreary and unconvincing. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 26, 2013
The Immigrant is certainly different: but Gray seems to run out of ideas and the film is shapeless and unsatisfying. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 26, 2013
Dialogue aside, the craftsmanship is unimpeachable, and Gray takes a timeless approach to pacing and camerawork: even the sunlight is sepia-tinted. But the grand themes of loyalty and ambition never catch fire, and the film’s few truly memorable moments are invariably its smallest. Read full review
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