Metacritic reviews

A riotous, rapturous explosion of sound and color, Black Orpheus is less about Orpheus's doomed love for Eurydice than about Camus's love for cinema at its most gestural and kinetic.

It really is not the two lovers that are the focus of interest in this film; it is the music, the movement, the storm of color that go into the two-day festival. M. Camus has done a superb job of getting the documented look not only of the overall fandango but also of the buildup of momentum the day before. (Review of Original Release)

Camus's film remains a revivifying experience - and a mid-winter oasis. Born and bred in France, Camus made other films, and lots of French TV, but Black Orpheus may still be the greatest one-hit-wonder import we've ever seen.

Besides its exhilarating style, the well-acted film works as an effective translation of the classic Greek myth into a Brazilian romance. (Review of Original Release)

A film that art-house audiences in 1959 loved madly. And who can blame them? A buoyant, searingly colorful retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in Rio de Janiero, writer-director's Marcel Camus' movie is a romance heightened by its backdrop.

Pic is somewhat cerebral, being mainly helped by the fresh playing of the cast, especially Yank actress Dawn. Color is excellent, and director Marcel Camus gives this movement. (Review of Original Release)

This is a movie about the marriage between sound and image, and the sound is wearing the pants in the relationship.

This sort of thing was considered high art not so long ago; now it seems forced and ponderously symbolic.