If many modern viewers have never heard of Anning, Ammonite does well to bring her story to their attention, and deservedly so.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 23, 2024

Lee has, over his two films so far, proven a dab hand at teasing out unexpressed, furtive desires, depicting both the visceral emotions and gritty physicality of same-sex romance with empathy and an understated artistic flair.

Full Review | Jun 5, 2023

It adds up to an expertly crafted film that nonetheless feels somewhat distanced and removed, like an exhibit under glass.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 28, 2021

The overly orchestrated sex scenes often feel more intrusive than intimate.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 26, 2021

A perfectly respectable, eminently professional slice of prestige arthouse.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 26, 2021

Kate Winslet slowly illuminates Mary from the inside, passion fighting caution beneath that classically composed demeanour. It's one of the performances of her career.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2021

Another film would threaten a scandal. Lee is more interested in the stuff of desire - what pulls couples together and apart, how power shifts between them.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2021

It is tempting to wonder whether Lee is already working to a formula... Forgive these mannerisms, though, and Ammonite becomes a film of earthy, robust sensuality.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2021

There's something so "complete" about Ammonite, with a resonant ending that is poetic in its refusal to give us what we want.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2021

Another tenderly executed triumph from Francis Lee, and a captivating, serrated starring performance from Kate Winslet. Ammonite is a fine feat in British filmmaking craft.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 23, 2021

...acted with frank sensuality by Winslet and Ronan...

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 16, 2021

[Director Francis] Lee did persuade me that this was a love that might have been. And a happy love, at that.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 14, 2021

A love letter to two extraordinary historical figures told through a fictional tale, Ammonite is also a moving, thoughtful and very sexy love story in and of itself.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 13, 2021

Movies about repressed or secret queer romance seem to use queer relationships as an emblem of deep self-truth and rebellion against the confines of a patriarchal society. And for a good portion of its runtime, Ammonite takes that spirit and runs with it.

Full Review | Jan 8, 2021

A tale of corsets and cunnilingus, this sapphic drama illustrates the problems that arise when the message becomes the medium...its outrage over injustice is as blunt as its sex scenes, which have the estranging effect of being both explicit and opaque.

Full Review | Dec 11, 2020

Winslet and Ronan well capture the magnetic draw between two people who recognize in each other a trapped spirit, and who are determined to help shake the other free.

Full Review | Dec 7, 2020

[Ammonite] is many things, all of them remarkable: a queer romance that finds passion in austerity; a biopic that strips away most details of Anning's career while honoring its spirit; and a portrait of genius thwarted by gender.

Full Review | Dec 3, 2020

At times... the strong performances by Winslet and Ronan seem to be all that separate this movie from a soft-core bodice-ripper.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 2, 2020

It captures the essence of a forbidden attraction at a time when same-sex love was stifled and considered deviant.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 19, 2020

It's just a lot of smoke, which makes it even harder to see through the film's hazy lens.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Nov 18, 2020