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Heaven's Gate

1980

Michael Cimino

Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges ...

6.9

3,635

Western. Drama. Romance Michael Cimino's bleak anti-western based on events in 1890s Wyoming. Sheriff James Averill attempts to protect immigrant farmers from wealthy cattle interests, and also clashes with a hired gun, Nathan Champion, over the woman they both love, Ella Watson. Both men find themselves questioning their roles in the furious conflict between wealthy landowners and European immigrants attempting to build new lives on the American frontier, ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"The story is both slow moving and hard to follow, but the locations and period details offer plenty to ponder."	NEU
United States	Richard Brody The New Yorker	"Cimino made a film that’s both conventional and boldly original (...) Distinctive, passionate, grand, intimate, devastating."	POS
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"This is one of the ugliest films I have ever seen (...) A director is in deep trouble when we do not even enjoy the primary act of looking at his picture (…) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"	NEG
United Kingdom	Philip French The Guardian	"This is probably the most handsome western ever made"	POS
United States	Nathan Rabin AV Club	"It's a film of rare beauty and scope, a feast for the eyes and a harrowing, unflinching meditation on the cruelty of capitalism"	POS
United States	Variety	"The balance of director Michael Cimino's film is so confusing, so overlong at three-and-a-half hours and so ponderous that it fails to work at almost every level."	NEG
United States	Dennis Lim The New York Times	"Time has been kind to 'Heaven’s Gate'"	POS
United States	Dana Stevens Slate	"On a purely sensory level, 'Heaven’s Gate' is overpowering"	POS
United Kingdom	Ian Freer Empire	"A studio fell and Michael Cimino's career never recovered but 'Heaven's Gate' lives on as a landmark Western (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Tom Huddleston Time Out	"A grippingly violent parable, a touching, tragic romance (...) One of the most beautiful, immersive films ever made (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS

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