Before Night Falls 2000

Ebert & Roeper: Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Redolent of atmosphere and rapturously cinematic, Before Night Falls has a gift for creating visual mood that's so strong you'd swear it couldn't last -- but you'd be wrong. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: The main reason to see Before Night Falls is Bardem, one of the few modern actors with real animal appeal and the guts to show it. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: A prosaically inspirational and passionate work, a celebration of the artistic impulse as a surging force of nature. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: If Before Night Falls doesn't give us Arenas's life as he actually experienced it, it offers penetrating glimpses into his life as he may have dreamed it. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Arenas is not presented as a cliche, as the heroic gay artist crushed by totalitarian straightness, but as a man who might have been approximately as unhappy no matter where he was born. Read more

Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A visually arresting, well-acted biopic that would be better in Spanish. Read more

Houston Chronicle: Consistently intriguing and surprisingly entertaining. Read more

Paul Tatara, CNN.com: Enjoy Before Night Falls as a great movie, and as a celebration of one man's spiritual and artistic fortitude. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: The best American movie since American Beauty. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Before Night Falls lays bare not just the cruelty of Cuba's totalitarianism but its spiritual essence. Read more

Globe and Mail: Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: A spellbinding treatment of the life of the late Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas that also confirms painter Julian Schnabel as a director of the first rank. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: An intriguing and sporadically powerful motion picture with a stellar central performance. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: Before Night Falls is such a vivid experience that it holds you fully in each moment. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Bardem hasn't the charisma to bring variety to Arenas or his plight. Read more

Time Out: Read more

USA Today: Spain's Javier Bardem gives an undeniably dynamic lead performance that lifts this labor of love over its incessant downer premise. Read more

David Rooney, Variety: Schnabel has fashioned a dense, emotionally satisfying portrait of a man, a time and a place. Read more

Dennis Lim, Village Voice: The film's ephemeral, semi-evasive lyricism ultimately works as a modest frame for Bardem's tender, deft portrait, which is in turn suitably expansive and rooted in the most concrete details. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: Though Schnabel's first picture, Basquiat, was notable for its excess and self-indulgence, the filmmaker shows restraint and maturity in this moving depiction of Arenas's life and loves. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: It's a struggle not just to make art but to exist, which is itself an art. And to that goal, the cast members, led by the astonishing Bardem, allow themselves to be devoured by the roles they are playing. Read more