Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Matt Greene Using the exact philosophical problem of the Spanish Inquisition (torture brings only desperation, not truth), Forman has created a posh nightmare disguised as a costume drama in Goya's Ghost. Like his masterpiece "Amadeus", he's showing the gritty, vile humanity underneath the garish outfits & wigs of mid-millennia high-society. All the performances are great, the story is great, everything looks great...30% on RT?? I don't get it; an underrated tone parable.

Irishchatter At the beginning of the film, I thought it was quite interesting because of course, it seemed to me that it was very different. Why you ask? Because a priest told a young woman's father that he would promise to rescue her from being falsely imprisoned by the Catholic Church. Then when he greeted her at first, he disgraced himself by raping her and got kicked out by the monastery. I didn't get why he broke his promise because it was also concentrating on the painter Goya. OK, since this movie was about him, why did they add Lorenzo and Natalie Portman ' s character? Sure they didn't even exist for starters! Pretty much, Goya is last in the line, he isn't cared much especially having his name mentioned on the movie title! That's very disappointing to think they left Goya out completely!If I was Milos Forman, I would reconsider doing the storyline of the movie again but I would honestly keep the actors because I honestly loved seeing Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem!

leplatypus Well, if i wasn't a fan of Nathalie, i would have never picked this movie and it would have been a pity as it's a good one. Forman seems to walk in the path of Gavras as he attacks the hypocrisy of institutions. First, it's the Spanish church and its crazy Inquisition. While Christian doctrine is love, compassion, mercy, it's terrifying to see that its head could ever imagine to torture people, to live in opulence ! And as usual, as the message is universal, those people aren't disturbed to be among males only ! The so-called enlightened rebels aren't better as bringing liberty, democracy means also to kill opponents ! So, everybody kills everybody and always found the pretext to do so ! This was 2 centuries ago and things haven't changed very much ! That's why such historical movies like this one are essential as they help us to understand our present and make us realize that problems just keep repeating and that we are as dumb as our ancestors! In my opinion, the film is also all the more clear and punchy than its cast is excellent : Nathalie as a honest young woman who gets broken (a bit like in « V » ) and Pénelope husband's as a real cunning opportunist !

pc95 Director Milos Forman has completely botched this disjointed mess of a story, "Goya's Ghosts". Direction, camera-work, and music are all distracting and confusing. Having Portman play Mother and Daughter was an awful choice - and the direction she takes is misplaced. Her characters are naive simpletons. By the end of the movie we've come full circle with societal changes and the mockery is complete and the dead horse continues to get beaten. Anytime you jump 15 years in story, you'd better be sure you have all loose ends tied up and they just don't seem so. How can the Head Priest not have passed away in 15 years, or the Lorenzo character actually look younger? These were technical problems. The revolution scenes seemed badly staged, and the Ines character's family some how dies the same day she's released. Give this one a miss unless you enjoy the period piece. It's worth repeating too, the music and score seemed woefully out-of-place - almost like James Bond music. A bad movie in a lot of ways.