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Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Weinstein Company

Vicky Cristina Barcelona reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 70 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.4 out of 10
based on 34 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 59 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexuality, and smoking

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Chris Messina, Patricia Clarkson, and Kevin Dunn

Two young American women, Vicky and Cristina come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Vicky is sensible and engaged to be married; Cristina is emotionally and sexually adventurous. In Barcelona, they’re drawn into a series of unconventional romantic entanglements with Juan Antonio, a charismatic painter, who is still involved with his tempestuous ex-wife Maria Elena. Set against the luscious Mediterranean sensuality of Barcelona, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Woody Allen’s funny and open-minded celebration of love in all its configurations. (The Weinstein Company)


GENRE(S): Comedy  |  Drama  |  Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Woody Allen  
DIRECTED BY: Woody Allen  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: August 15, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA | Spain 
LANGUAGE(S): Catalan | English | Spanish 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The film's freedom and control, its inspiration and focus, announce it as the work of a confident and mature artist.
Read Full Review
91
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
It's a summery idyll: his most entertaining picture since "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994) or maybe "Sweet and Lowdown" (1999).
Read Full Review
90
Village Voice Scott Foundas
Allen has crafted a wry and thoughtful film about the peculiar stirrings of the heart that is certainly his most accomplished piece of work since 2005's "Match Point" and arguably his funniest in the eight years since "Small Time Crooks."
Read Full Review
88
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Smoking, shouting, practically shooting off sparks, Cruz spreads a wildfire sexuality across Allen's sunny tableau of Catalan country picnics and scenic Barcelona ramblings.
Read Full Review
88
USA Today Claudia Puig
As exhilarating, captivating and enjoyable as a summer romance in an exotic city.
Read Full Review
88
New York Post Lou Lumenick
After years of diminishing returns, Woody Allen spectacularly returns to form with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, his funniest movie in years and arguably his sexiest.
Read Full Review
83
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Through it all, Vicky Cristina Barcelona remains unaccountably romantic, a confirmation that love, elusive and painful as it can be, is still worth pursuing.
Read Full Review
80
The New Yorker David Denby
Allen can be literal-minded about his thematic polarities, but, in this movie, he has put actors with first-class temperament on the screen, and his writing is both crisp and ambivalent: he works everything out with a stringent thoroughness that still allows room for surprise.
Read Full Review
80
Variety Todd McCarthy
Offers potent romantic fantasy elements for men and women and a cast that should produce the best commercial returns for a Woody Allen film since "Match Point."
Read Full Review
80
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Ought to have been an eye-roller. What a surprise that it's so seductive. The Woodman lives!
Read Full Review
80
Washington Post Dan Zak
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is beautiful because Allen is now decidedly in control of this phase of his career, which blends the sharpness of his older dramas with a newly acquired expatriate hipness.
Read Full Review
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The movie goes down very easily.
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75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The actors are attractive, the city is magnificent, the love scenes don't get all sweaty, and everybody finishes the summer a little wiser and with a lifetime of memories. What more could you ask?
Read Full Review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Gotham gives way to Gaudi and the Met to Miro, but the sensibility is the same, the city as a precious treasure, and so is the message: Life may be hard and short, love may be flawed or doomed, but, my, aren't we blessed with lovely distractions.
Read Full Review
75
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Sincere, delicately funny, a little staid, a little precious, and more interested in the ebb and flow of the heart than in the dubious rewards of sensational narrative twists.
Read Full Review
75
Premiere Eric Kohn
Allen does craft a fairly observant account of human behavior, so that the solemn aspects don't put a damper on the humor, or vice versa.
Read Full Review
75
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Woody Allen's sexiest movie ever.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
I enjoyed it as much as any Allen film of the last 20 years.
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75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Cruz, who has never been able to fully show what she's capable of as an actress in an English-language film, takes to the role of the dark-haired hellcat with a sexy, bewitching fury.
Read Full Review
75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
With all this going for it, Vicky Cristina Barcelona should be better than it is. But there's something intriguing going on here. It's a movie about the sacrifices that people make to be happy.
Read Full Review
70
Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman
The narration, aided by a terrific score, does streamline the storytelling, and adds to it a faintly sardonic top note.
Read Full Review
70
Time Richard Corliss
It's just fine. Not great; just fine.
Read Full Review
70
Film Threat Matthew Sorrento
Let's not kid ourselves: There's something about Javi.
Read Full Review
70
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Although Vicky Cristina trips along winningly, carried by the beauty of its locations and stars -- and all the gauzy romanticism those enchanted places and people imply -- it reverberates with implacable melancholy, a sense of loss.
Read Full Review
67
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The writing is zippy, the story spins like a top, and Bardem turns out to be the wittiest of leading men.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Fitfully good.
Read Full Review
63
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
There's a terrific movie buried in Woody Allen's tale of two American girls broadening their horizons in Barcelona, and every once in a while tantalizing glimpses penetrate the twee narration and mannered performances.
Read Full Review
63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
An atypical Allen film. Some of his usual themes are present - in particular, his neuroses about sex and love - but this movie does not bear enough Allen hallmarks to single it out as his work.
Read Full Review
60
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Bardem's performance is so good it tends to mask how lacking much of what surrounds it is.
Read Full Review
60
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
It's literally difficult to believe that the person who made this picturesque, clueless, oddly misanthropic picture also made "Annie Hall" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Read Full Review
60
New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
There are two stormy performances from Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz that elevate Allen's melancholy thoughts on love and relationships.
Read Full Review
50
Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Something is terribly amiss when the American actors sound like English is their second language.
Read Full Review
38
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Allen's laziness is startling, even in so mechanical a filmmaker. He uses a monotonous narrator to tell us what the characters think and do, though he then shows them performing the actions that have just been described.
Read Full Review
30
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Watching Allen fart out a story when he has no characters is always painful, as people are defined through clumsy expository dialogue and ranked according to their cultural accomplishments. But the script here is lazy even by his standards.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 59 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Aaron L. gave it a10:
The best woody allen film in many years, the writing feels like his old films, but wiser. Fun, sexy, surprising, witty, well worth it.

Billy S. gave it a10:
In my 40 years of movie going there's been two constants that are a dependable annual reason to remind me why I love the movies - The Oscars and a film by Woody Allen. Sometimes I'm not happy with the Oscars, I've never been unhappy with Woody. He's made a few classics and many great films and the rest are just very good. Vicki Cristina Barcelona is a great film and Spain is the perfect location in which Woody makes a city another character in his film the same way he canonized NYC for all those years. Looks like this will be another year when Woody and the Oscars will be together again!!

Nick gave it a0:
Worst. movie. ever. painfully embarrassing, I'd rather go to prison then see this movie again.

Corinne M. gave it a3:
I would have given it a zero if not for Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz - I'm sick of Woody Allen getting good reviews on bad movies because he's Woody Allen. This would never have been made and certainly not with these stars if not for his name. Like so many other of his recent movies.

Carl S. gave it a4:
A movie about PASSION; yet apart from Penelope Cruz this film is devoid of it - everyone is sleepwalking. Woody Allen is too neurotic to embrace feelings as free-spirited as passion, so him making a film about it is like a fish discussing life outside the bowl.

Alan G. gave it a9:
YES, Male fantasy, but it makes senset hat women should reallly get along and support one another; what woman really wants a full-time man anyway ? IF other American Writers were authoring, the ending might have been more formulaic and less believable; but perhaps more satisfying and with slightly higher audience reviews/satisfaction.

Tom H. gave it an8:
Quite entertaining with excellent performances by all, especially Rebecca Hall. The narration was the only part I didn't like, but you sort of get used to it by the end.

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