Pi 1998

Critics score:
87 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Stephen Holden, New York Times: As smart as it is, 'Pi' is awfully hard to watch. Filmed with hand-held cameras in splotchy black-and-white and crudely edited, it has the style and attitude of a no-budget midnight movie. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Read more

Bill Boisvert, Chicago Reader: Pi turns what should be a metaphoric relationship into a stupefyingly literal-minded thriller. Read more

Entertainment Weekly: Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Audacious and bursting with ideas. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Transports us to a world that is like yet unlike our own, and, in its mysterious familiarity, is eerie, intense, and compelling. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The seductive thing about Aronofsky's film is that it is halfway plausible in terms of modern physics and math. Read more

Laura Miller, Salon.com: The movie's low-budget look neatly matches the claustrophobia of Max's life, but the filmmakers have also devised some special shooting methods for certain scenes. These sequences -- breathless and jangly chases, for the most part -- look terrific. Read more

Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle: It all leads to a very strange place, and I'm particularly impressed with the economical means, both financially and artistically, by which Aronofsky gets there. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Aronofsky, who has parlayed this movie's Sundance success into two Hollywood deals, is that rare indie filmmaker who doesn't want to make hip romantic sitcoms. He's a genuine experimenter with a spooky visual style. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: We share Max's feelings of imminent psychological disintegration as the film probes our own insecurity in the face of the eternal. Maths meets millennial doom in one of the decade's true originals. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: It's remarkable to what extent Aronofsky has rendered the cerebral kinetically intense. The film's imaginative, diverse images create a mind's-eye urban claustrophobia. Read more