Avis Metacritic

It is a difficult film - slow-paced, unashamedly theatrical and heavily laden with philosophy – yet a profoundly satifying one: a rewarding display of filmmaking mastery that forms a mystical and enigmatic coda to a legendary career.

The Sacrifice is not the sort of movie most people will choose to see, but those with the imagination to risk it may find it rewarding.

It is brilliant and audacious, with one of the most extraordinary final sequences in modern cinema, and all in a manner which Hollywood in the succeeding decade would learn to call "high concept".

Like much of the filmmaker’s work (not to mention Bergman’s), The Sacrifice is haunted by the gap between human yearning and ultimate understanding, between the way things are and the way we long for them to be.

THE SACRIFICE is about a number of things, none obvious and none remaining wholly consistent from one viewing to the next; it is a poetic vision, filled with the symbolism peculiar to Tarkovsky's imagination. It is also a visually stunning, hauntingly beautiful, brilliant piece of art.

The blend of midlife crisis and existential terror is reminiscent of the films of Ingmar Bergman, but Tarkovsky makes it a world of his own.

In The Sacrifice, the cryptic Tarkovsky style helps create a towering cathedral.

It may not be your glass of tea; it's a tall glass, through which events are seen murkily. Those who stay with it, however, may find rewards in burst after burst of beauty and even a glimmer of meaning.

The few insecurities in the filmmaking, which stick out in contrast to his Russian works, are easily overlooked by how masterful other scenes are and the impressiveness of the imagery.

Tarkovsky pulls you into a dark, foreboding nightmare and Nykvist gives that nightmare an explosive awakening.