The Pianist Critic Reviews

Metascore®:

89 =
Based upon 14 Critic Reviews
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Boston Globe | Ty BurrAdd Critic to Favorites

There are three Poles in The Pianist -- Szpilman, Polanski, and Frederic Chopin. Of the three, fittingly, Chopin speaks the loudest.Read the full review

San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalleAdd Critic to Favorites

One of the great Holocaust films.Read the full review

Washington Post | Desson ThomsonAdd Critic to Favorites

Polanski, himself a survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland, has created a near-masterpiece.Read the full review

Washington Post | Stephen HunterAdd Critic to Favorites

A beautiful story, told in measured cadences by a master of old-timey narrative compression and expression.Read the full review

Slate | David EdelsteinAdd Critic to Favorites

The best film of 2002.Read the full review

Entertainment Weekly | Lisa SchwarzbaumAdd Critic to Favorites

The result is a movie, and Cannes Palme d'Or winner, of riveting power and sadness, a great match of film and filmmaker -- and star, too.Read the full review

The New York Times | A.O. ScottAdd Critic to Favorites

Polanski, who was a Jewish child in Krakow when the Germans arrived in September 1939, presents Szpilman's story with bleak, acid humor and with a ruthless objectivity that encompasses both cynicism and compassion.Read the full review

Los Angeles Times | Manohla DargisAdd Critic to Favorites

Never before has a fiction film so clearly and to such devastating effect laid out the calculation of the Nazi machinery of death and its irrationality.Read the full review

USA Today | Mike ClarkAdd Critic to Favorites

With this 2002 Cannes Film Festival best-picture winner, Polanski skips the quirky flourishes and simply brings history to life.Read the full review

Chicago Sun-Times | Roger EbertAdd Critic to Favorites

The closing scenes of the movie involve Szpilman's confrontation with a German captain named Wilm Hosenfeld -- Polanski's direction of this scene, his use of pause and nuance, is masterful.Read the full review

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