Metacritic Movie Ratings
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Reviews

A sample of reviews from critics across the country.

• 100

  out of 100

  Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert

  This is a dark, dark, dark film, focused on an obsession so complete and lonely it shuts out all other human experience. You may not savor it, but you will not stop watching it, in horror and fascination.

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• 75

  out of 100

  Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum

  Perfume misses some of the subtler base notes of Sskind's creepier, more self-aware original, but Whishaw and Tykwer blend the movie into something quite heady in its own bottle.

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• 70

  out of 100

  VarietyDerek Elley

  The seductive, sensory prose of Patrick Suskind's bestseller, "Perfume," reaches the screen with loads of visual panache but only intermittent magic.

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• 70

  out of 100

  The Hollywood Reporter

  Long regarded as unfilmable, Patrick Suskind's 1985 novel "Perfume" has finally reached the screen in a blockbuster production that succeeds reasonably well in achieving what many said was beyond the scope of cinema: conveying the world of scent and smell.

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• 50

  out of 100

  Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern

  Weaves a sensual spell of extraordinary delicacy, then sustains it -- up to a point.

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• 40

  out of 100

  Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano

  What's missing is less a sense of the protagonist's inner nose (which is very well-trammeled) as a sense of his inner life, motivation or desire.

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• 30

  out of 100

  The New York TimesA.O. Scott

  Try as it might to be refined and provocative, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer never rises above the pedestrian creepiness of its conceit.

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