Metacritic Movie Ratings
The White Ribbon Reviews

A sample of reviews from critics across the country.

• 100

  out of 100

  Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert

  The film is visually masterful. It's in black and white, of course.

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• 100

  out of 100

  The Hollywood Reporter

  It's a superb cinematic work and an appropriately serious one, given its subject matter and its intentions.

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• 90

  out of 100

  Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey

  We don't go to Michael Haneke films for comfort, but to gaze through a glass darkly. That vision -- tense, provocative and unnerving -- is on full display in The White Ribbon, which could be considered a culmination of this difficult director's brilliant career.

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• 90

  out of 100

  VarietyTodd McCarthy

  Immaculately crafted in beautiful black-and-white and entirely absorbing through its longish running time, Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon nonetheless proves a difficult film to entirely embrace.

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• 80

  out of 100

  Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern

  A severe and eerily beautiful German-language drama.

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• 70

  out of 100

  The New York TimesA.O. Scott

  An unnerving but unsatisfying chronicle of a German village filled with hidden cruelty, set on the eve of World War I.

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• 67

  out of 100

  Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman

  Shot in vivid black and white, the movie is like "Village of the Damned" directed by Ingmar Bergman, only without Bergman's intensity.

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• 63

  out of 100

  USA TodayClaudia Puig

  An artful examination of a small town and small-mindedness and the potential for full-blown, large-scale evil. But it's strangely bloodless.

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See all The White Ribbon movie reviews at Metacritic.com