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Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: With her brassy, determined aunt, Ida sets off to find answers and discovers life beyond the convent walls in this leisurely but satisfying journey. Read more
Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: The film is both delicate and unforgettable. Read more
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Pawel Pawlikowski's "Ida," a compact masterpiece set in Poland in the early 1960s, gets to the heart of its matter with startling swiftness. Read more
John Hartl, Seattle Times: As the heroine who bounces back from one potential catastrophe after another, Trzebuchowska always suggests resilience. She's got a lot on her mind, but we know she'll survive. Read more
Peter Debruge, Variety: Instead of making the young woman's search feel immediate and universal, such an ascetic treatment locks it away in the past. Read more
A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Nestled within its sins-of-the-elders narrative is a faintly charming cross-generational bonding picture, pairing a worldly cynic with a young girl taking her last gasp of secular air before giving her life to the Lord. Read more
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Spare, haunting and in its own way beautiful, "Ida" is an absorbing film about discovering the truth, and the attendant price we pay to learn it. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: A thing of beauty that overstays its welcome. It's possible that Pawlikowski would be a great artist if he weren't so hellbent on convincing us of it. Read more
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: This story of faith and despair is gracefully told, its simple, uncluttered spaces and luminous black-and-white photography harking back to Robert Bresson. Read more
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "Ida" accomplishes so much, so surely in its 80 minutes, it's as if the director Pawel Pawlikowski had dared himself: How can I tell this fascinating story efficiently yet without rushing and abridging the narrative? Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: What comes across is a vast woefulness for what the war did to Poland and all its people. Amid this darkness and dread, Ida is like a transcendent beacon. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Consider "Ida" the first offering in a summer celebrating Polish cinema and the latest masterpiece in a powerful tradition. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: In the end, Ida has to confront where she's come from, decide who she is and who she wants to be. Then again, don't we all? Read more
Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: This rigorous beautiful black-and-white drama of early-'60s Poland is an art film in the best sense. Read more
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: It is Trzebuchowska's face, and her character's situation, her existential and practical journey, that hold our interest in "Ida." Read more
David Thomson, The New Republic: Quite soon in watching Ida, you recognize that you are going to have to see the picture again and again. Read more
Anthony Lane, New Yorker: This is solemn filmmaking, devoutly restrained and unshakably purposeful. We expect its austerity to fend us off, but no; it gathers us in and forbids us to look away. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The finest work yet from a terrific filmmaker. And, one can only hope, the one that begins to bring him the attention he deserves. Read more
Mark Jenkins, NPR: Everyone is on a voyage of self-discovery in Ida - the two central characters certainly, but also Poland-born, Britain-based director Pawel Pawlikowski, making his first film in the homeland he left at 14. Read more
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Both "Ida" and Ida are exquisite. Read more
A.O. Scott, New York Times: Within its relatively brief duration and its narrow black-and-white frames, the movie somehow contains a cosmos of guilt, violence and pain. Read more
Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: The performances are beyond reproach. As Wanda, Agata Kulesza is mournfully magnetic. As Ida, Agata Trzebuchowska expresses a complex consciousness budding up from behind her sweet blank slate. Read more
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A masterpiece. Read more
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Now that Paweł Pawlikowski's haunting Polish film has been nominated for a foreign-language Oscar, Ida is back in the conversation. Let yourself be enveloped by a modern cinema classic. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Yes, I'm recommending a black-and-white film about a nun and a judge in Communist-era Poland. Read more
Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: The Polish drama "Ida" is a rarity, a film both intensely grounded in painful historical reality and genuinely otherworldly. Read more
Dana Stevens, Slate: There's an urgency to Ida's simple, elemental story that makes it seem timely, or maybe just timeless. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Ida" is a story of faith and identity, an exquisite, austere drama in a plaintive minor key. Read more
Mark Matousek, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A film with meat and bones sorely lacking in heart. Read more
Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: Ida reaches spiritual depth through affecting performances rendered in sublime black-and-white compositions. Cinematographer Lukasz Zal places faces in the lower corner of his frame to arresting effect. Read more
J. Hoberman, Tablet: Ida is not only an evocation of early '60s Poland, the period of Pawlikowski's childhood, but a film that gives the illusion that it could have been made then. Read more
Kiva Reardon, Globe and Mail: The parable resonates emotionally thanks to Trzebuchowska's performance. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: [The] screenplay is a model of economy, as precise as the lensing by Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal, who often position their subjects at the bottom of the frame, emphasizing personal insignificance within the totalitarian machine. Read more
Tom Huddleston, Time Out: The effect is somewhere between incredible beauty and mounting discomfort. Read more
Aaron Cutler, Village Voice: Rendered compellingly in black-and-white. Read more
David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Ida is barely 80 minutes and lacks fullness, and the style that's so arresting can also seem studied. But the movie's chill is hard to shake off. Read more
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: For a film about grave moral questions and contradictions, "Ida" possesses more than its share of sensory pleasures ... Read more