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Damien Chazelle is obsessed with the punishing pursuit of perfection. Whether it's finding an immaculate tempo, hurtling into space, or making it big in Hollywood, his films feature characters who are willing to endure physical and emotional torture to reach the finish line. If " La La Land " was his wide-eyed, sentimental look at the movie machine, "Babylon" feels like a very intentional counter to the criticisms of that film. It's a lavish 1920s-period piece about how often the silver screen images that feel like magic are really the product of incredibly hard work, broken dreams, and a lot of luck. Multiple sequences in "Babylon" detail how much work goes into two seconds of film, whether it's a field of dozens of extras sitting around while a camera is obtained or the difficult perfection needed when recording sound. Those two excellent scenes remind us that none of this is easy, even if it all looks so much fun.

Is it all worth it? That's the tough question. Chazelle gives lip service to the idea that this version of landing on the moon is worth the trip, but he drags his characters and the viewers through so much misanthropy to get there that it's hard to believe him. "Babylon" is a film of stunning parts—both individual scenes, performances, and tech elements—but it feels like the magic touch that Chazelle needed to pull them together in an honest way eludes him. There's something to be said about a film being so robustly unapologetic, but I felt as manipulated and deluded as the outsiders in this film who are eaten up by the Hollywood machine by the time it was over. One might argue that's intentional—a "feel bad" Hollywood movie is rare—but it's the difference between pulling back a curtain and simply rubbing your face in elephant shit.

And that's how "Babylon" opens, introducing us to Manny Torres ( Diego Calva ), a Mexican American in the city of angels at the end of the silent film era. He's trying to get an elephant to an insane Hollywood party, the kind of drug- and sex-fueled affair that was only whispered about in the gossip rags of the time. Chazelle uses the orgiastic bacchanal to introduce his players, including an aspiring actress perfectly named Nellie LaRoy ( Margot Robbie ), who catches Manny's eye just as her star is about to rise. We also meet the suave Jack Conrad ( Brad Pitt ), a silent film star about to leave his third wife and be struck by the fickle finger of fame as talkies come into the picture and the wheel turns to a new era of stars. There's a jazz trumpet player named Sidney ( Jovan Adepo ) and the underwritten role of a cabaret singer named Lady Fay Zhu ( Li Jun Li ). Gossip journalist Elinor St. John ( Jean Smart ) writes about it all while recognizable faces like Lukas Haas , Olivia Wilde , Spike Jonze , Jeff Garlin , and even Flea flirt on the edges of the story.

It's an undeniably ace ensemble, led by another fearless turn from Robbie and a star-making one from Calva, but Pitt is the stand-out, conveying a sense of lost glory that sometimes feels almost personal. Pitt has been a star for over 30 years—he's seen legends like Jack Conrad come and go, and he imbues his performance with a relatable melancholy that gives the entire film depth that it could have used in a few more places.

Chazelle's ambitious tapestry approach focuses on the ascending arcs of the outsiders—Manny, Sidney, and Nellie don't understand they're part of a system that values them about as much as it does the equipment it needs to shoot the films (maybe less). Even the star Jack Conrad will discover how disposable legends can be. All of them become power players in their own way—Nellie holds the screen in a way that few actresses other than Robbie could convey convincingly; Sidney's musical talent ascends as sound takes over the silents; Manny is clearly one of the smarter people on a set, and that grants him an increasing number of decisions. There's an underdeveloped love story between Manny and Nellie, but this film is more about the love of movies and Hollywood history than romance. It is also loaded with an overwhelming blend of historical detail and urban legends. Chazelle clearly did his homework.

And, once again, it feels like the filmmaker's commitment elevated his team of craftspeople. Linus Sandgren's fluid cinematography gives the film a lot of its momentum—his shots are rarely flashy but always propulsive. Justin Hurwitz's score might be the best of the year, finding recurring themes for its characters that gives the entire piece more of a sense of opera—a connection that fits this story's dark tone and tragic endings. The production design straddles that line between feeling genuine and also larger than life at the same time. The intercutting of the stories sometimes feels like it gets away from the excellent editor Tom Cross , but that's more a product of Chazelle's occasionally unfocused script than anything in the editing room.

About that script. "Babylon" is a test of whether or not a film can be the sum of its gorgeous pieces. A great score, a talented ensemble, and expert cinematography—all are undeniable here. And yet there are narrative elements of "Babylon" that feel hollow from the very beginning and only get more so as Chazelle tries to inject some manipulative lessons into the final scenes. A film like "Babylon" can be aggressively bitter and contemptuous, but I found it hypocritical when it tries to play the "isn't it all worth it" card that everyone knows is coming in the final scenes. Fans of this film seem to be adoring this finale, but it struck me as the falsest material in Chazelle's career.

There's a sense that Chazelle is suggesting that we don't get " Singin' in the Rain " if lives aren't destroyed during the transition from silent to talkies, and isn't it great that we got that movie ? That's a deeply cynical and superficial way to look at filmmaking. If he thinks he's pulling back the curtain on a broken industry, he reveals himself to be a part of that warped system in the end. It's like he doesn't want to seriously consider how his beloved art will destroy its dreamers as long as his raging party keeps going.

Available only in theaters on December 23rd. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film Credits

Babylon (2022)

Rated R for strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, bloody violence, drug use, and pervasive language.

189 minutes

Diego Calva as Manny Torres

Margot Robbie as Nellie LaRoy

Brad Pitt as Jack Conrad

Jovan Adepo as Sidney Palmer

Li Jun Li as Lady Fay Zhu

Jean Smart as Elinor St. John

Tobey Maguire as James McKay

J.C. Currais as Truck Driver

Jimmy Ortega as Elephant Wrangler

Marcos A. Ferraez as Police Officer

Lukas Haas as George Munn

Patrick Fugit as Officer Elwood

Eric Roberts as Robert Roy

Cici Lau as Gho Zhu

David Lau as Sam Wong Zhu

Rory Scovel as The Count

Max Minghella as Irving Thalberg

Samara Weaving as Constance Moore

Jeff Garlin as Don Wallach

Ethan Suplee as Wilson

Marc Platt as Producer

• Damien Chazelle

Cinematographer

• Linus Sandgren
• Justin Hurwitz

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Babylon review: a chaotic whirlwind of indulgent filler

Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy and Diego Calva plays Manny Torres in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

Hollywood loves telling stories about itself. No surprise there – movies are a business based on recycling.

Just look at Babylon . It’s almost a beat-for-beat remake of Boogie Nights , only instead of being about the early days of pornographic movies and how new technology took all the fun out of it, it’s about the early days of silent movies and how new technology took all the fun out of it.

Is there a really intense and claustrophobic scene towards the film’s end involving a creepy and possibly lethal drug dealer? Yep – though this one involves a cadaverous Tobey Maguire and a musclebound giant biting the heads off rats, so clearly we’ve come a long way since Dirk Diggler.

Read : Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre review: favouring the bold?

If you’re thinking that remaking Boogie Nights without the porn maybe misses the point of what people liked about Boogie Nights , don’t worry. Writer/director Damien Chazelle ( La La Land , First Man ) kicks Babylon off with an exuberant high-energy orgy that ticks pretty much all the boxes, even if most of the sex is confined to the hordes of gyrating extras in the background. It’s an ecstatic, chaotic whirlwind of debauchery that’s often astonishing. Alas, it’s a high note the characters – and the film – can only fall from.

Rising stars

Front of frame are our six central characters, though only three of them get much story to work with despite the excessive three-hour run time. Matinee idol Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is at the end of his marriage and at the peak of his powers. Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) is a buzzing gatecrasher who doesn’t want to become a star – you either are a star or you ain’t (and she is).

Jazz musician Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) gets a minor plot about his rise and fall: from providing background music to becoming a marquee name (and developing a white fanbase). Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) gets even less to do as a sultry singer big on sapphic performances while writing silent movie dialogue cards on the side.

As for gossip columnist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), she’s basically there to remind us the media exists, and to deliver a monologue late in the story on how nobody in movies really matters. She couldn’t have told us that up front?

Read : The Fabelmans review: Steven Spielberg’s movies are dreams

The closest Babylon comes to a central character is Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a low-level fixer working on the fringes who we meet trying to deliver an elephant up a hill to the mansion that will host the night’s orgy. The elephant shits all over his co-worker in a sign that maybe the movie business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Though considering a few minutes later an infantile movie star is gleefully being pissed on by a starlet, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Manny gets Nellie past party security out of the goodness of his heart, and they bond over her love of gambling and drugs and his … well, we never really find out much about what’s going on with him (or anyone else) aside from a passionate desire to become part of the movie business and the occasional declaration of (unreturned) love for Nellie.

Talking pictures

As with most rise-and-fall narratives, the higher you rise, the further you fall. While Manny takes a little while to get going – unlike Nellie, who’s a star the second she gets in front of a camera – eventually he’s calling the shots behind the scenes. He’s the only main character whose career takes off with the arrival of sound mid-story, but even he can’t fight the grim reality of Hollywood: there are no comebacks. Which weirdly is presented here as some kind of iron law, when chances are the average viewer can come up with a half-dozen careers that have had second acts and beyond (Brendan Fraser; Ke Huy Quan, anyone?).

Read : I Wanna Dance With Somebody review: celebrating Whitney Houston

Not that any of the story arcs really matter. The lack of depth to the characters (despite a trio of strong performances from the leads) means the only scenes that click are the stand-alone ones making a point beyond the narrative. Unfortunately they’re all in the first hour, especially a highly entertaining slapstick take on film-making that’s also a reminder that now that the Coen brothers have retired, their goofy retro shtick is up for grabs.

It’s not exactly all downhill from there. There’s a winning scene about the struggle to make a film now that recording sound has turned the business on its head, but even this rapidly becomes a long-lens look at a bunch of people we don’t care about flailing about wildly before sinking into obscurity or death.

Chazelle has come up with a handful of striking sequences, padded out with a whole lot of artfully directed filler. It’s a period piece full of impeccable costuming and splashing bodily fluids that makes the case that aside from a few memorable moments the history of cinema is just a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Though if you’ve ever wanted to see Margot Robbie throw up all over a fancy rug in front of a bunch of snooty well-to-dos, Hollywood has got you sorted.

Babylon is in cinemas nationwide from 19 January.

3 out of 5 stars

Anthony Morris

Format: Movie

Anthony Morris is a freelance film and television writer. He’s been a regular contributor to The Big Issue, Empire Magazine, Junkee, Broadsheet, The Wheeler Centre and Forte Magazine, where he’s currently the film editor. Other publications he’s contributed to include Vice, The Vine, Kill Your Darlings (where he was their online film columnist), The Lifted Brow, Urban Walkabout and Spook Magazine. He’s the co-author of hit romantic comedy novel The Hot Guy, and he’s also written some short stories he’d rather you didn’t mention. You can follow him on Twitter @morrbeat and read some of his reviews on the blog It’s Better in the Dark.

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Margot Robbie’s new movie is three hours of barely controlled chaos

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Babylon ★★★ (MA15+) 189 minutes

Writer-director Damien Chazelle makes a brave but doomed attempt to achieve three hours of controlled chaos with Babylon , his mordant tribute to the last days of Hollywood’s silent era.

Margot Robbie and Diego Calva star in writer-director Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. Credit: Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures via AP

He describes La La Land , his earlier film about Hollywood, as a tender love letter and this one as more of a poison pen letter, although it’s clear that he also sees the film as an elegy – a rueful celebration of a pioneering age.

A contradiction? Absolutely. The film’s tonal changes – from tragedy to black farce with scatological lowlights – are executed at a speed which makes your head spin. The only constant is Chazelle’s fondness for loud music and staccato editing.

After a brief introductory sequence involving a close-up of a defecating elephant’s rear end (I won’t elaborate) comes an orgiastic party scene peopled by some 700 extras, most of them naked or near-naked. The host is a studio chief and the film’s main characters are all present. Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a young Mexican with ambitions to work in movie production, is babysitting the elephant, also a guest, and Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is there because his status as Hollywood’s biggest star requires him to be everywhere. But Margot Robbie’s Nellie Laroy is a gatecrasher who gets past security solely because Manny vouches for her. He’s fallen for her at first sight, which is unfortunate, because she has eyes only for her own future. A brash tough-talker from New Jersey, she sees herself not as a star in the making, but as a star in waiting. She just needs the right firmament in which to shine.

Robbie’s character Nellie Laroy sees herself not as a star in the making, but as a star in waiting. Credit: Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures via AP

And it doesn’t take her long. At the party, her unbridled moves on the dance floor get her noticed. She’s taken on by Kinoscope, a down-market studio where an assortment of movies are being filmed next to one another, although the expanse of desert surrounding them suggests they could easily spread out a little and bring down the noise level. Such a practical solution, however, wouldn’t suit Chazelle’s desire for continuous hyperactivity. Those 700 extras really earn their money.

To make an impression amid such mayhem you need bona fide movie stars, and he couldn’t have made more inspired choices. Pitt gets better as he gets older. He’s no longer the show pony he was as a young man. There’s an edge of self-mockery to him these days, and he’s become a gifted deadpan comic. Robbie, too, commands the camera with her vitality. She does shine. And in his first English-language role, Calva, with the looks of a young Valentino, emerges as a natural. He’s our guide in the frenetic world that Chazelle has created. He gradually discovers how it ticks until he’s forced to go too far. He then becomes acquainted with its seediest and most dangerous aspects.

These are the elements that fascinate Chazelle, who says he imagined the Roaring Twenties’ excesses went no further than bootlegging and the Charleston before he began his research. He had access to sound recordings, oral histories, photographs and film clips that he did not know existed. Yet you emerge from the film feeling as if you’ve consumed Hollywood Babylon , the notorious gossip monger, Kenneth Anger’s 1975 expose, in one gulp, leading to an inevitable case of acid reflux.

A couple of anecdotes are familiar from the book. Other episodes are embellished so elaborately that implausibility tips over into farce, which wouldn’t matter if you were occasionally afforded some breathing space. Even Robbie’s performance suffers in the end because the script gives her no grace notes, eventually pushing her into caricature.

Lukas Haas, Brad Pitt and Spike Jonze in Babylon. Credit: Paramount Pictures via AP

Chazelle has modelled most of his characters on real people. Conrad is based in part on John Gilbert, the silent star whose career flickered and died with the arrival of the talkies. Nellie has much in common with the “It Girl”, Clara Bow, and Jean Smart’s gossip columnist, Elinor St John – a rather stagey creation – owes a lot to Elinor Glyn and Adela Rogers St Johns.

In the end, Chazelle does evoke the elegiac mood he’s after, finishing with a wistful meditation on the evanescence of fame and the fragility of those who fail to survive its demands. But the film would have been so much better if the chaos had been controlled and he had been able to resist the mantra: nothing succeeds like excess.

Babylon is in cinemas from January 19.

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• User reviews

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

• Damien Chazelle
• Margot Robbie
• 956 User reviews
• 310 Critic reviews
• 61 Metascore
• 46 wins & 161 nominations total

Top cast 99+

• Jack Conrad

• Nellie LaRoy

• Elinor St. John

• Truck Driver
• (as JC Currais)

• Manny Torres

• Elephant Wrangler

• Police Officer
• (as Marcos Ferraez)

• Jane Thornton

• Orville Pickwick

• Sidney Palmer

• Joe Holiday

• Guest (Chicken Line)

• Female Guest (Nathalie)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The character of Lady Fay Zhu is loosely based on Anna May Wong (1905-1961) the first Chinese-American actress in Hollywood whose career spanned both silent and sound films.
• Goofs A "Jackass Forever" billboard appears in the 1952 epilogue.

[Jack finds George crying with his head in the toilet]

Jack Conrad : Aw, Georgie. Who was it this time?

George Munn : [panting] Claire.

Jack Conrad : Claire. Well, Claire's a lesbian. That's an uphill battle for anyone.

• Crazy credits The Paramount logo is the 1920s version, fitting the era the film is set in.
• Alternate versions In Singapore, before the film could passed with an R21 classification for theatrical release, the distributor required to remove a scene depicting a deviant sexual act in which the authority felt it has exceeded the classification guidelines which states that "any material that is about or promotes deviant sexual behavior" would be refused classification.
• Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Best Movies of 2022 (2022)
• Soundtracks My Girl's Pussy Lyrics by Harry Roy Music and additional lyrics by Justin Hurwitz Performed by Li Jun Li

User reviews 956

• Feb 6, 2023
• How long is Babylon? Powered by Alexa
• December 23, 2022 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official Instagram
• Santa Clarita, California, USA
• Paramount Pictures
• C2 Motion Picture Group
• Marc Platt Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $110,000,000 (estimated)
• $15,351,455
• Dec 25, 2022
• $63,562,440

Technical specs

• Runtime 3 hours 9 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos

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Babylon is absolute fire — and everyone in it is burning

Whiplash director Damien Chazelle offers a Hollywood opus defined by passion and destruction

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The first widely available film stock in America was made with a nitrate base. Highly flammable and barely stable, this nitrate film — used from the earliest days of filmmaking until the introduction of safer acetate film stock in the 1940s and ’50s — became more dangerous with age if it wasn’t cared for properly: It released flammable gas as it decomposed into goo, then dust. In the final stages of its breakdown, it was capable of spontaneous combustion, setting history ablaze if it got hot enough on a summer day.

Countless films were lost in this way. There were fires in a Fox film vault in 1937, in MGM’s in 1965, in the National Archives in 1978 . In the silent-film era, projection-booth fires were commonplace, as the heat from projectors was often enough to ignite the nitrate film running through them.

As for the nitrate film stock from that era that survives? Much of it has fallen into decay. In Bill Morrison’s 2002 avant-garde film Decasia , scenes from silent-era films are presented in collage in their eroding state, as images that once depicted great emotion or intrigue are overtaken by the rot of time.

And yet the movie stars that once drew people to these films dreamed of immortality.

Immortality is what everyone wants in Babylon , the divisive new film from Damien Chazelle, acclaimed writer-director of Whiplash , La La Land , and First Man . It starts at the top: Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is the biggest movie star in Hollywood at the peak of the silent-film era, surveying his kingdom with pride, knowing he’s fueling the dreams of the common folk and has built something that will last. Nellie LaRoy ( perennial Harley Quinn Margot Robbie ) has nothing but a self-selected name and the conviction that she deserves to be as big a star as Conrad. And Manny Torres (Diego Calva) is a waiter to the rich who dreams of making something that lasts, like a movie.

Babylon follows the fates and fortunes of these three and others around them as they diverge and intersect over the course of years. It starts with an extended party, a raucous bacchanal all three of them attend — Jack as a guest of honor, Manny as the help, and Nellie as a party-crasher. Their story is the same one Hollywood continually tells about itself and the people that sustain it: a story about big dreams and the grand life that might follow for a few people who are crazy enough to believe they might come true.

Across Babylon ’s 188-minute run time, Nellie and Manny see their stocks rise. The former becomes the star she always believed she was, and the latter becomes a studio executive, all through a lot of grit and a bit of right-place, right-time fortune. Meanwhile, change is on the horizon, as the 1927 premiere of The Jazz Singer throws showbiz off its axis, and Jack Conrad’s world begins to fall apart. Then everyone’s world follows, because fame is fickle and fleeting, and no one gets to be on top forever.

This is a song most movie-lovers can sing by heart, and one Chazelle has been singing in some form or another since Whiplash , his breakout film. His stories are about extraordinary people who dare to dream, who drag themselves from the wreckage — literally, in some cases — to realize that dream and be lionized for it, even if it costs them everything else in their lives. In Chazelle’s cinematic vision, art is more vital and beautiful than life itself, and the people who would set themselves ablaze for art, whether in Earth’s orbit or behind a drum kit, are the noblest of souls.

A message like this — pursuing fame is an act of hubris, and artists are transcendent in their foolish vainglory — is highly dependent on its messenger, and Babylon dances on a razor’s edge from its first frame. Yet Chazelle, alongside his longtime editor Tom Cross and composer Justin Hurwitz, are among the most accomplished dance partners making movies right now.

There’s a musicality to Chazelle’s films as he, Hurwitz, and Cross use the visual medium of film with the improvisational vigor of jazz musicians, and Babylon is their showstopper. The cuts are syncopated to get the audience moving. The color palette is bold and brassy, blurring the line between the images on screen and the horns that fuel them. The camera lingers on performers and performances: a showstopping, manic dance from Nellie LaRoy in the film’s opening bash/orgy, a drunken climb up a hill by Jack Conrad, utterly wasted, right before he miraculously pulls himself together to deliver a perfect take. The tightening of Manny’s brow and lips as he assumes the role of an executive, and does whatever it takes to convince the movers and shakers that he belongs in the room with them.

Yet for all of Babylon ’s glorying in art and artists, in Hollywood and dreams, it would all be in vain without a compelling reason why . This is where the film is most volatile. Its title deliberately evokes Hollywood Babylon , Kenneth Anger’s notorious (and largely fabricated) 1959 tell-all about the golden age of Tinseltown, a book that helped cement in the public consciousness the idea that the glitz and glamour of show business came part and parcel with a seedy underbelly of sex, drugs, and violence — often at the cost of women and queer people caught under its sensational gaze, and the tabloids that preceded or followed the book’s publication.

Babylon leans into this sensationalism, first with its title, then with its opening party, an orgy that climaxes with an elephant parading through a mansion in order to distract from the body of a girl who overdosed after a sexual rendezvous. As Nellie’s and Manny’s fortunes rise, staying in the game forces them both to make compromises that chip away at their humanity. Nellie burns bright and hot, turning to drugs and gambling. Others, like the burlesque singer Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), lose their livelihoods to her wanton appetites. Manny’s naked ambition causes him to treat other marginalized people as stepping stones, going as far as to ask Black trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) to perform in blackface in order to appease markets in the South, keep a shoot on schedule, and save his bosses’ money.

The beautiful collision between Nellie and Manny at the start of Babylon signals the start of their respective rises. As the film builds toward its conclusion, it tangles them together again in freefall. Their rapid descent reaches its nadir as Manny embarks on a trip to Hollywood’s version of hell, hosted by loan shark and lurid thrillseeker James McKay (Tobey Maguire, one of Babylon ’s producers, playing wonderfully against type). In his hands, the salacious orgy of the film’s opening meets its horrific opposite.

Babylon is long enough that it can cause viewers to wonder — multiple times! — whether sensationalism and navel-gazing are the film’s only tricks. The movie echoes the sensational shock and awe of the star machine, inviting the audience to marvel and recoil at the wonder and horror it has wrought. But Chazelle is deft enough to suggest, more than once, that he’s playing at something deeper and more challenging.

In the broadest reading, Babylon is a profane paean to film as a uniquely communal medium, gathering the collective hopes and dreams of everyone who experiences them. The film celebrates cinema as the ultimate end goal, a worthy reason for these messy, broken people to immolate themselves in the act of creation. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jack Conrad confronts entertainment journalist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) over a negative profile she wrote. In response, Elinor tells him the truth of things: Neither of them matter. The movies do. There will be other stars and other journalists, but they are all in the service of what the beam of light projects on the silver screen.

This story, however, has been told. We’ve seen it in bona fide classics like Singin’ in the Rain , and in more recent works like the 2011 Best Picture winner The Artist . Both those films are concerned with similar ideas, and set in the exact same era. Chazelle has even already delivered a loving homage to Hollywood in La La Land , his musical about an aspiring actress who sings about the fools who dream. Babylon , in all of its sound and fury, is redundant. And then Chazelle makes one final audacious pivot: He acknowledges this in the text.

In an astonishing finale, Babylon marries bombast and tragedy in one fell swoop, embracing Chazelle’s hubris as an artist by letting him insert himself into the cinematic canon, while he’s endeavoring to earn his place there at the same time. In its final moments, he isn’t content to just tell another story about the rarefied few who dreamed, and built an empire where countless others could dream along with them. Instead, he weeps over what was destroyed to keep that dream alive, and what’s been forgotten so others can hope to be remembered.

Babylon ’s most significant moments don’t come during the big events in Nellie, Jack, or Manny’s stories. They’re the quieter scenes, tracking what happens in the wake of their flaming parabolic arcs. They’re about the people who are forced out of the business or choose to walk away — the queer people forced into hiding to bolster studios’ public image, the marginalized forced to bear indignities so white actors can chase immortality.

This is the Babylon of the film’s title: The burnished image left behind after the people who built it are gone. It is easy to get caught up in the magic of movies and only see Jack Conrad, or Damien Chazelle — and if that’s all you see in Babylon , revulsion may come naturally. But Babylon is also concerned with what happens in the periphery of Hollywood’s white heroes. Chazelle shoots his stars with a lens wide enough that it’s not hard to see who lingers in the periphery, and the parts they have to play. Keep an eye on those people as they come and go, and Babylon becomes a cacophonous dirge for them, weeping for their anonymity in all the beauty that came at their expense. Their nitrate went up in flames and left us with lovely little lies of living forever.

Babylon premieres in theaters on Dec. 23.

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Babylon film review — Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie star in ambitious ode to Hollywood

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Movie Reviews

Movie review: 'babylon'.

Bob Mondello

Director Damien Chazelle's "Babylon" is a comically over-the-top look at scandal-ridden 1920s Hollywood. It's a celebration of an art form in turmoil as silent films give way to talkies.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Babylon: Damien Chazelle's poison pen letter to Hollywood feels masturbatory in its performative self-flagellation

One of the first shots in Babylon is of an elephant's anus, just as the beast lets loose a torrent of faeces – ordure that, in a confusing touch of simulated vérité, remains smeared on the lens even after the cut.

Take heed: This shot is a portent of the spectacle to come.

That it brings to mind a similarly graphic shot from last year's Blonde , Andrew Dominik's punishing study of Marilyn Monroe, is fitting: Damien Chazelle's latest is also 'a love letter to Hollywood' as written with a poison pen; a showbiz saga that fails to recognise the masturbatory element of its performative self-flagellation.

Certainly it has more in common with Blonde's noxious vision than it does with La La Land (2016), Chazelle's old school musical paean to LA's starry-eyed dreamers, or Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's 1952 classic Singin' in the Rain, the film that Babylon – its three-plus hours rammed with allusions to Hollywood history and lore – takes as its primary touchstone.

Like that film, Babylon unfolds at the crossroads of silent and sound cinema, as the effects of the pivot to talkies (precipitated by The Jazz Singer, released in 1927) reverberate through the industry, with careers being launched and terminated on a dime.

Unlike Singin' in the Rain, Babylon seizes on the storied decadence of its jazz age setting. The film kicks off with a bacchanal at a movie mogul's mansion that seems to have been put together by Jay Gatsby's party-planning team (and I mean Luhrmann's Gatsby, not Fitzgerald's) alongside the cult leaders from Eyes Wide Shut.

The ballroom is a heaving pit of flesh, dotted with bare breasts and jewelled headdresses and live chickens and, for good measure, a dwarf on a big penis-shaped pogo stick.

This could – should – be fun, at least in the moment, but there is an air of desperation to Chazelle's shock tactics, and the spectacle is too carefully composed to convey any real sense of abandon. Surely only a square would have their orgy choreographed by someone from Dancing with the Stars .

The film ultimately offers something like a square's take on Hollywood as seen through the eyes of Kenneth Anger – set down in his notorious work of yellow journalism, Hollywood Babylon (published in France in 1959 but banned in the United States for a decade).

Where Anger wove scraps of lurid fiction into his accounts of movie star scandals, however, Chazelle peoples his Sin City (mostly) with fictive, composite creations, whose arcs riff on those of various Golden Age luminaries without claiming to mirror them.

Amongst the party's Boschian morass are Brad Pitt's Jack Conrad, a movie star around whom guests cluster like metal shavings to a magnet (modelled primarily on John Gilbert), and Margot Robbie's Nellie LaRoy (see: Clara Bow), a wannabe starlet from Jersey, not on the guest list but still gunning to steal a little bit of the spotlight, and a lot of cocaine.

Swathed in an extremely brief and badly draped scarlet dress paired with kitten-heeled ankle boots, Nellie more so than any of the myriad characters the film throws at us looks to have stumbled in from a completely different film – maybe a Kylie Minogue music video. (I submit the outfit she later wears to the cinema, a sequinned bralette and short shorts combo, as further evidence.)

Her entree is facilitated by lowly employee of the house Manny Torres, played by Mexican actor Diego Calva (in his first English-language role), who is immediately besotted with her drunken chutzpah. Nellie (or is it the plate of coke they plough into?) unlocks in him a desire to be part of something "bigger", something "more important than life".

Safe to say they've ruled the seminary out, so that leaves the movies.

Babylon is at great pains to demonstrate the danger in affording such almighty importance to the seventh art, however.

Film production in the silent era is revealed to be a cruel – and, for some Babylon viewers, likely exasperating – farce: The 'set' is a hodgepodge of plywood facades rudely erected in the desert, overrun by armies of costumed extras – apparently, "junkies from Skid Row" – who decry poor working conditions, while a German-accented director (played by Spike Jonze, one of a squillion semi-cameos) shouts profanity-rich directives at his underlings, and there are no operational cameras to be found.

When an extra gets run-through with a spear, the man's death is casually chalked up to a "drinking problem". This, Chazelle appears to tut, is what happens when movies are deemed "more important than life".

Things only get worse when the 30s come along, bringing with them not just the disruption of sound but also puritanical moral regulations, applicable to the stars on screen and off. Pushed underground, the behind-the-scenes hedonism becomes sleazier, and much more dangerous.

Via countless smash cuts and whip pans (recall that Chazelle's breakout feature was titled Whiplash ), the writer-director weaves together the Tinseltown travails of Jack, Nellie, and Manny, as well as sexy sapphic actor Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) and trumpet player Sid Palmer (Jovan Adepo). Each must choose to either sell out – first themselves, and then others – or get out.

In Chazelle's telling, the film industry is so addicted to itself, so without dignity or self-awareness, that it hews close to human trafficking.

In Babylon's final act, Manny is whisked off to a terrifying venue out in the desert (anyone for "The Asshole of Los Angeles"? No?) by a big-time gangster who wants to get into the biz (Tobey Maguire, channelling a ventriloquist's dummy for some reason). There, he gleefully shows Manny a man munching on live rats for spare change. "They found him in a forest in Oregon," coos the kingpin. "He will do AN-EE-THING for cash. He's perfect for movies!"

Which begs the question: Is a movie – a $US78 million movie – the best medium through which to convey such a damning message? (Nathanael West, author of seminal 1939 Hollywood-as-hellscape novel The Day of the Locust, to which Babylon is indebted, might've had a few notes.)

In any case, surely this blackened cynicism is suspect coming from the maker of La La Land, with its tableaux of young lovers soft-shoeing through the Hollywood Hills at magic hour: Has Chazelle dramatically changed his tune about his own industry, or is he just trying on different attitudes for size?

Admittedly, Babylon is not all fire and brimstone. Chazelle allows for the existence of moments of something like grace, however corny: when the chaos of the desert film set coalesces at last, suddenly, just as the light is giving out, in the form of one perfect shot, with Jack Conrad taking his paramour into his arms; or when Manny goes to the cinema, decades on from his Hollywood misadventures, only for the screen to be taken over by a rapid-fire montage of shining moments from the entirety of the medium's life span, from Eadweard Muybridge right through to Avatar.

Never mind the breathtaking presumption of such a conceit, or of the decision to incorporate the work of filmmakers who had absolutely nothing to do with the machinations of the Dream Factory; never mind the jarring juxtaposition of James Cameron's Pandora and Ingmar Bergman's Persona – this is what we're fighting for, Chazelle seems to be saying, this crazy little thing called cinema that, goddammit, is bigger and more important than us.

Perhaps Chazelle is saying that he believes in something like the God of cinema but not the church.

After being bludgeoned with hours of debasement, however, the few-and-far-between moments of seeming sweetness are as cheap glacé cherries atop a Fatty Arbuckle-sized helping of elephant dung. Or, even worse, they work to eulogise a mode of filmmaking – auteur-driven, generously budgeted, non-franchise, non-streaming – and so inadvertently assist in its being lowered into the ground.

Babylon is in cinemas now.

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'I’ve never been so conflicted about a movie as I am after watching Babylon.'

If there was a film equivalent to that one raucous party guest who is entertaining but also a little too much, it would be Babylon .

The three-hour epic set in the 1920s, written and directed by Damien Chazelle , is an excessive love letter to the film industry, the allure of fame, and the hedonistic lifestyle that comes with it.

It's also visually stunning, with an all-star cast and a dazzling sequence of musical scenes, and yet I’ve never been so conflicted about a movie as I am after watching Babylon .

Take a look at the trailer for Babylon. Post continues after video. 

In the film, Diego Calva stars as Manuel "Manny" Torres, a Mexican-American immigrant who dreams of working in the film industry and who slowly starts to make his way up the ladder after a chance meeting with some industry heavyweights at a debaucherous Los Angeles party.

Amongst those characters are Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) a silent film star who, after years of being one of Hollywood's most bankable actors, can feel his career slipping away and so attempts to hide his pain via excessive drinking and multiple wives.

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The Power Move Behind Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet’s New Photo

There's also Nellie LaRoy ( Margot Robbie ) an aspiring actress whose path also crosses with Manny on this fateful night. 

A night that turns out to be her big break into the movies thanks to the fact that another young actress ( Phoebe Tonkin ) overdosed at the party and was swiftly replaced on set the next day.

Babylon's  strongest asset, apart from the fact that Margot Robbie is given a slew of scene-stealing moments that rival her time as Harley Quinn, is the series of little vignettes and jokes weaved throughout the film, rather than the overall story itself.

Moments where you see a series of larger-than-life characters attempt to make movies (with very little regard for human life, it has to be said) and then transition from silent to talkie films. 

It's watching the antics that take place at the flamboyant parties and a series of big comedy swings that all centre on animals being where they ideally shouldn't be (an elephant, a crocodile, a rattlesnake, and an unlucky rat are all big comedy players in the world of  Babylon).

These are the moments that make Babylon work, the moments that had the audience screeching with laughter and then gasping at some of the more graphic moments.

But there are also very few moments that lean into the humanity of these characters we're supposed to be following through orgies, shoot-outs, high society parties, and tense studio showdowns.

There's a scene where acclaimed film journalist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) delivers a brutal but honest monologue to Jack about the true nature of fame and his failing career.

A scene where Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), a Black jazz trumpet player, is finally given the ultimate Hollywood break and then forced to make a difficult decision when they alter his appearance.

And – one of the most mesmerizing parts of the film – a scene where Nellie films her first movie role and, in a surprise turn of events, is not just the manic and messy starlet the story had built her up to be. But rather a skilled actress who will cut her opponents down at any cost.

But these moments are few and far between and in many instances, the characters are more caricatures of movie stars, rather than realistic players on the screen.

For every scene that shows a hint of humanity, there are a dozen more piled around it that depict Nellie in a frenzied and drunken state or Jack staring off into the distance with a movie star longing or turning to a woman with a smarmy smile on his face. 

And this is just where the conflict around Babylon comes into play.

The movie buckles under too many unnecessary scenes that show the darkest and most excessive sides of Hollywood. It tries to be both a ludicrous action comedy and serious mediation on the perils of fame but never really achieves either.

At the same time, my eyes were glued to the screen for the film's entire three-hour run time. 

All because, even though  Babylon  doesn't quite land, there's something mesmerising about watching a filmmaker and his cast just throw everything and anything at the screen with gleeful abandon. Hoping some of it will stick but not waiting around long enough to check before moving on to the next wildly indulgent set piece.

Listen to this episode of The Spill. Post continues after podcast.

Babylon  is overflowing with beauty, pain, and the realisation that fame, while intoxicating, will never love you back (and a whole lot of scenes involving bodily functions going awry) but maybe that's the point.

Why the characters in the film sometimes veer into caricatures, is maybe because that's how we still see celebrities today. As objects that exist for entertainment and gossip rather than fully formed people.

So, even though I'm still debating whether or not Babylon is a work of offbeat genius or a heavy-handed and schmaltzy offering, I still think you should see it on the big screen.

See it for the spectacle, for the nostalgia of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and because there still needs to be a place for films that both frustrate and entertain us in equal measures.

The excessive antics of Hollywood are something we've never been able to look away from, and  Babylon  not only leans into this thirst, it pretty much drowns you in it. 

Laura Brodnik is Mamamia's Head of Entertainment and host of The Spill podcast.  You can follow her on Instagram here.

Image: Paramount Pictures Australia

Babylon is in cinemas Australia-wide from Thursday 19 January. 

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Babylon Reviews Are Here, See What Critics Are Saying About Damian Chazelle’s Hollywood Epic

Audiences are in for a wild ride.

After providing audiences with Academy Award winners like Whiplash , La La Land and First Man , Damien Chazelle is back to fill our holiday season with another wild story that’s likely to be in contention for next year’s biggest awards . Babylon is a movie about movies, as audiences will follow five main characters through the era when Hollywood was transitioning from silent film to talkies. First reactions to Babylon were mixed, with people calling it everything from “a love letter to cinema” to “a flaming hot mess.” Now the reviews are here to help us decide if we’ll be taking a trip to the theater for Christmas.

Babylon ’s impressive ensemble is one reason to be excited about the movie , as it stars Margot Robbie , Brad Pitt , Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li, whose characters jump through time, experiencing the highest highs and lowest lows of their careers. Let’s see what the critics are saying, starting with CinemaBlend’s review of Babylon . Eric Eisenberg rates the film 3 stars out of 5, saying that while the first half is one of the best movies of the year, it’s destined to be divisive, yet still worth the watch. His take:

At its best, Babylon is exciting, hilarious, and a blast… but those adjectives are mostly reserved for describing approximately the first 90 minutes. The back half of the film, while it does have its highlights, demonstrates an inability for the movie to fully carry its own weight, and the multi-faceted narrative descends into tropes and some groan-worthy material before the end credits start to roll.

Leah Greenblatt of EW grades the film a C-, saying Damien Chazelle seems desperate to convey  the depravity of Hollywood, for “three turgid, clattering hours,” and the result is frankly exhausting. She says in the review:  

They and a cast of what easily seems like thousands spend most of the next 186 minutes in a whirl of decadence and bad decisions, careening from one hectic misadventure to the next. Cocaine piles up like table salt; sex is universal currency, and death comes casually and frequently, as a gut punch or a punchline.

Tomris Laffly of AV Club , however, calls Babylon “masterful,” grading the “deliciously decadent” movie an A and saying it’s not a minute too long. The critic says despite what’s going on on-screen, this is the writer/director’s most clear-headed film: 

With an electric score by Justin Hurwitz (that occasionally resembles the chords in Chazelle’s La La Land too audibly), it’s all pure, eye-gouging debauchery for 30 or so minutes. Before the suggestive title Babylon appears, there will be plenty of orgies, mountains of drugs, sexual fetishes, naughty performance bits, projectile vomiting, and more sweaty bare bodies than one can count.

Babylon shows yet again that Damien Chazelle isn’t afraid to swing for the fences or go too far, according to Travis Hopson of Punch Drunk Critics , making him a filmmaker always worth checking out. However, only the lead trio get the proper amount of attention, and themes of race and homophobia would likely have been better off omitted since they’re not properly explored, the critic argues, rating the film 3 out of 5 stars:  

Like the blitzed-out-of-its-mind lovechild of Boogie Nights and The Wolf of Wall Street, Damien Chazelle’s exciting, exhausting, and sloppy ode to jazz age Hollywood, Babylon, features elephant shit and golden showers in the first ten minutes. It also features a Los Angeles as you’ve rarely seen it…tranquil. For a moment, anyway. The city is in the midst of an epic transition, not just from silent movies into ‘talkies’, but the city as a whole from quiet desert to sprawling show business epicenter. They say that Hollywood will chew people up and spit them out, but this has always been true. Never moreso than the tragic, hopeful, and thrilling era that Chazelle lovingly, maddeningly depicts.

Nick Schager of The Daily Beast calls Babylon “an orgy of every worst idea in Hollywood” and a story about the roaring ‘20s in which  no one looks, acts, or talks like they’re from that decade. The critic says the movie steals from every great director before collapsing in on itself. More from Schager:

Chockablock with profanity, nudity, and all manner of demented degradation, Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to First Man is a three-hour work of grand and grotesque excess that strives to celebrate the wondrous power of the movies. All it does, however, is crassly steal the magic of its superior ancestors, right up to a finale that parasitically pinches yesteryear’s classics for the pathos it can’t conjure on its own.

Love it or hate it, people are definitely going to be talking about Damien Chazelle’s latest offering, especially in regards to awards. If you want to be in the conversation, you’ll be able to see this one for yourself in theaters starting Friday, December 23. Be sure to also check out what’s headed to the big screen in the new year with our 2023 Movie Release Schedule .

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Heidi Venable is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend, a mom of two and a hard-core '90s kid. She started freelancing for CinemaBlend in 2020 and officially came on board in 2021. Her job entails writing news stories and TV reactions from some of her favorite prime-time shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Bachelor. She graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a degree in Journalism and worked in the newspaper industry for almost two decades in multiple roles including Sports Editor, Page Designer and Online Editor. Unprovoked, will quote Friends in any situation. Thrives on New Orleans Saints football, The West Wing and taco trucks.

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The Dizzying Debauchery of Babylon

Damien Chazelle’s new film is an extravaganza of caustic misery and overflowing movie magic.

For a lavish and expensive epic about 1920s Hollywood, Damien Chazelle’s new film, Babylon , introduces itself about as scatologically as possible. In its first sequence, a harried gofer named Manny Torres (played by Diego Calva) tries to transport an elephant into the Hollywood Hills for a big-shot producer’s party, a farcical task that ends with the elephant pooping on the camera lens—in a way, on the viewers themselves. We then cut to a giggling movie star getting urinated on as part of some private sexcapade while the party ensues on the floors below—a sweaty, drug-fueled orgy that Chazelle presents in a bravura unbroken take.

The scene, filled with wondrous and horrifying sights, massively overstays its welcome. And that sets the tone perfectly for Chazelle’s ensuing poison-pen letter to Hollywood’s silent era, a three-hour-plus extravaganza of debauchery, general misery, and overflowing movie magic that sets the industry aflame and invites the audience to dance around the bonfire. It’s a daring thing for a major studio to put out these days, when big budgets tend to be lavished on superheroes, and Babylon ’s caustic indulgence will likely put many theatergoers off. But Chazelle is trying to make a point with all the excess: that the joy of cinema has always gone hand in hand with exploitation, abuse, and off-screen villainy.

On its face, Babylon would seem to be the flip-side narrative to La La Land , the director’s Oscar-winning musical about filmmaking, which took a much gauzier approach. In it, people sang winsome ballads saluting “the fools who dream,” and stardom was granted to those who strived hard enough for it, though it came at the cost of love. But La La Land was a film with a bittersweet edge ; Chazelle seemed to be critiquing his own nostalgia while still letting it play out on-screen to delight viewers. In Babylon , his affection for the fame-seeking business he works in has only curdled further, but his passion for film as a medium hasn’t diminished in the slightest. The subsequent raging contrast between these two notions is fascinating to watch.

Read: La La Land ’s double-edged nostalgia

A huge ensemble piece, Babylon focuses on three main characters. There’s Manny, a Mexican American assistant who rises through the ranks of a fictional studio to become a film executive right as movies begin their transition to “talkies.” At the frenzied party in the film’s opening act, he meets two actors: Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a newcomer looking to break into the biz, and Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), an established superstar who can’t get out of bed before downing a few cocktails. Babylon follows each person’s rise and fall as their arcs intertwine and come apart, but it also delves into other tales of an industry stumbling toward a veneer of respectability during one of its most volatile eras.

Hollywood in the 1920s was, Chazelle insistently tells us, absolutely anarchic. Bankrolled by shady figures, filmmakers were still inventing basic storytelling concepts on the fly, and codes for on-screen decency and morality were a few years off. At one point, Chazelle virtuosically shoots a series of gigantic film productions all taking place simultaneously in the same California hills, a conceit that was feasible when movies didn’t have to worry about capturing sound. While one director wrangles thousands of extras for a colossal medieval-combat scene (somewhat reminiscent of the famed 1916 epic Intolerance ), other productions play out on intimate sets that have been knocked together. Chazelle’s camera roams from location to location, drinking in the wild glory of it all.

It might be the best sequence Chazelle has ever put together, and he’s staged quite a few dazzling set pieces in his short career. He wants the viewer to consider the sheer audacity of early moviemaking, particularly delighting in the contrast between the immense battle being orchestrated for one movie and an emotional barroom scene being produced for another, in which Nellie, a last-minute replacement, proves herself the saucy new star the studio’s been looking for. By the time the sequence ended, I was ready to proclaim Babylon a masterpiece, except that the film wasn’t even halfway done.

What follows is a dizzying series of concentric spirals for the ensemble that start feeling almost nauseating. Nellie’s initial triumphant success begins to falter because of her scandalous off-screen behavior; Jack’s image begins to fade with age, alcoholism, and changing trends; Manny’s desire to rise to the top compels him to make a set of morally compromising decisions. There are other characters with narratives rooted in film history that are equally fascinating, though they sadly get shorter shrift in Chazelle’s screenplay. Li Jun Li plays Lady Fay Zhu, a cabaret singer and an actress with a gift for painting silent-film title cards, and Jovan Adepo plays a trumpeter named Sidney Palmer who briefly enjoys fame during the early years of films with sound.

Read: When Hollywood’s power players were women

Almost all of these figures have historical analogues, with many of them blending classic bits of Hollywood lore—Nellie is obviously inspired by the flapper queen Clara Bow , Jack is the tragic silent star John Gilbert , Fay Zhu is much indebted to Anna May Wong , and so on. But Chazelle turns up the volume with each portrayal, mixing fact and fiction and giving his dialogue more contemporary snap and crackle to underline the ways the industry hasn’t changed after almost 100 years. Although I was moved and agitated by the cavalcades of failure Babylon depicts, the film almost deliberately becomes a drag, wringing out every last golden drop of nostalgia until everyone, on-screen and off, is miserable and exhausted.

But before ushering ticket buyers out the door, Chazelle presents a coda that is so absurd and daring, so simultaneously cornball and avant-garde, that I wasn’t sure whether to doff my cap or throw fruit at the screen. I shan’t describe it entirely, but it includes a montage that exists to underscore Chazelle’s core message about the world he’s working in. Yes, he seems to be saying, Hollywood is a fetid pit of exploitation that has sucked many souls dry over the decades, but it is all in service of the best entertainment money can buy. I’m not sure if I agree or if I was simply beaten into submission after more than three hours, but Babylon is the kind of grandiose folly that at least gives the viewer a big old mess to chew on.

Babylon Review

20 Jan 2023

You will seldom find a film as simultaneously romantic and repulsive as  Babylon . Damien Chazelle ’s palpably impassioned, occasionally overwhelming ode to the epic moviemaking magic of the pioneering studio era features at least four bodily fluids (three of which splash vibrantly across the screen during the film’s ambitious opening 45 minutes), and chucks out grotesquely framed sex acts like candy. For every shot of a single tear rolling down Margot Robbie ’s stoic face, there’s one of an elephant’s exploding rectum. It’s a visceral, mesmerising balancing act that doesn’t stop tipping throughout the film’s packed-to-the-rafters three-plus-hour runtime.

Chazelle wastes no time in setting his tempo, as he plunges into a 35-minute tour of a buzzy Hollywood party, rife with undulating dancers, live jazz and an Aladdin’s cave of hard drugs. Aspiring star Nellie (Robbie) has been snuck in by the puppy-eyed industry rookie Manny (Diego Calva). A freshly single A-list actor Jack ( Brad Pitt ) is the man of the hour. It’s a triumph of a set-piece; a relentlessly kinetic jamboree with Robbie at the epicentre, like a red spinning top with long, erratic limbs. It will leave you reeling. Only no sooner has the dust settled, it’s kicked it back up again, as the next day the three head to a huge, violent and tumultuous film set in the desert; Nellie making her debut in a dance scene, Jack roping Manny in to help on a grand battlefield-set romance. Here the film is at its most enjoyable, as Chazelle gleefully explores every corner of production, from the throbbing, sweaty temples of the directors working across different shoots to the vast sandy vistas peppered with exhausted extras.

Has Chazelle made a remarkable movie? He’s certainly made an unforgettable one.

As Nellie, Robbie is impressively athletic, whether she’s wrestling a rattlesnake or making a stomach-churning exit at an upper-crust party. Yet her range is set firmly to Harley Quinn in ’20s Hollywood — maniacal and exuberant — which leaves Nellie’s more emotionally demanding moments somewhat lacking. Clumsy dialogue contributes to this problem elsewhere: a two-hander between the brilliant Jean Smart as a seasoned gossip journalist and a post-heyday Jack descends into saccharine talk of ghosts and angels and the enduring power of celluloid.

Chazelle assumes his audience shares his obsession with what cinema means, but it’s never made entirely clear what that is. When Manny falls down a depraved rabbit hole with shady crime boss James ( Tobey Maguire , on creepy, excellent form), the film veers off track, painting marginalised performers as feared freaks without the celebratory or comedic subtext. And storylines involving Li-Jun Li’s queer performer and Jovan Adepo’s session musician-turned-on-screen star get overshadowed by the film’s insistent messaging on the power of film.

Has Chazelle made a remarkable movie? He’s certainly made an unforgettable one. The set-pieces are masterful, the comedy caustic and bold, the ensemble cast commanding even in the face of chaos. Its ambition is undeniable. Yet even with all its flair, what it’s trying to say about cinema gets lost in the noise.

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With brash and bawdy “ Babylon ,” director Damien Chazelle blows something between a poisoned kiss and a big fat raspberry at the same town he so swoonily depicted in “La La Land.” Separated by nine decades and nearly an ocean of cynicism, the two Tinseltown-set films seem unlikely to have sprung from the same head; we might never suspect they had, were it not for musical collaborator Justin Hurwitz’s busy, hyper-jazzinated score. Here, Chazelle rewinds the clock to Hollywood’s raucous early days — specifically, the transition from silent filmmaking to talkies, when the industry was still fresh and figuring out what it could be.

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Chazelle lets us know right out of the gate the kind of picture he has in store when a rented elephant empties its bowels on an unlucky animal wrangler (and, given where the camera is placed, on our heads as well). That outrageous spectacle is instantly topped by a kinky scene in what could be Fatty Arbuckle’s bedroom, as a corpulent silent comic giddily awaits his golden shower. Later that night, the starlet who indulged him will be dead of a drug overdose, forcing a desperate studio fixer (Flea) to tap Mexican employee Manny Torres (Calva) to get creative in disposing of the body. Characters major and minor alike are constantly dying in “Babylon” — no fewer than eight over the course of the film, plus two more name-checked in Variety obits at the end — but the tone is pitched at such a satirical extreme, not a one registers emotionally. Not even you-know-who’s.

Chazelle has essentially orchestrated a loud, vulgar live-action cartoon of a film, and while it’s exhilarating at times to witness the sheer virtuosity of his staging, the performances are all over the place. “Babylon” sorely lacks a point of view. Manny’s the closest thing the movie offers to an audience proxy, starting out as a wide-eyed outsider to the opening fete and working his way up to a studio executive position. But when asked by force-of-nature party crasher Nellie LaRoy (Robbie) why he wants to be in showbiz, the best Manny can muster is “I just want to be part of something bigger, I guess.”

Nearly all the main characters get a why-movies-matter monologue. Nearly all are shabbily written. “All the c—s in Lafayette called me the ugliest mutt in the neighborhood. Well, let them see me now!” Nellie shouts after her dancing at the party gets her discovered. The way she sashays is out of period, but that’s one of Chazelle’s incongruous rules for the movie: He spent 15 years researching the era, tapped production designer Florencia Martin and costume pro Mary Zophres to get every little detail right, then banished anything (like the Charleston) that he thought might take audiences out of the experience. Later, movie star Jack Conrad (Pitt, mugging it up as a John Gilbert-like romantic lead) will question, “The man who puts gasoline in your tank goes to your movies — why? … Because he feels less alone there.”

Witnessing it all is a gossip columnist named Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), who dictates her dispatches from the sidelines. She’s a curious character, an ahead-of-her-time Hedda Hopper, though she’s by far the most eloquent. Her “why they laughed” speech — “It’s those of us in the dark, those who just watch, who survive” — is the best scene in a movie full of far showier set pieces. Elinor will later be hired by the studio as a kind of manners coach for Nellie, which makes no sense, but then, neither does the idea that a scene-stealing bisexual woman named Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), loosely inspired by Anna May Wong, serves as a cabaret singer by night but pays her bills painting intertitles.

The middle hour of the film, which finds Jack and Nellie adapting to the advent of sound, owes a huge debt to “Singin’ in the Rain.” Chazelle stacks one big set piece after another — a string-of-pearls structure, with bawdy comedy more than music being the focus of each — then smash-cuts to the next scene, often to a blaring burst of jazz, or else the melancholy plunk of Hurwitz’s broken-player-piano score. You could argue that Black trumpet player Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) is also one of the film’s main characters, although he gets a far more anemic share of the plot and could have been cut out completely without much changing the film’s chemistry. Whereas all the other principals get overwritten introductions, Sidney makes his entrance onstage, playing his trumpet. Chazelle is obsessed with jazz, so maybe that solo takes the place of a monologue. Or maybe editor Tom Cross is confronted with too many threads.

There are myriad other flamboyant characters in a whirling ensemble that borrows more than is reasonable from other directors. That big opening party, for example, appears to be Chazelle’s way of one-upping “New York, New York,” though it lacks Scorsese’s instinct for privileging character over camera moves. Toward the end, an on-set drug dealer who calls himself “The Count” (Rory Scovel) gets Manny in a fix with a strung-out gangster (Tobey Maguire in a most unsettling cameo) — a rip-off of the Alfred Molina/Wonderland sequence in “Boogie Nights,” until it takes a deranged turn that suggests the “Gimp” scene from “Pulp Fiction.”

In his book “Hollywood Babylon,” Kenneth Anger spills the secrets of the Golden Age stars. “Film folk of the period are depicted as engaging in madcap, nonstop off-screen capers,” he writes. “The legend overlooks one fact — fear. That ever present thrilling-erotic fear that the bottom could drop out of their gilded dreams at any time.” Chazelle borrows both his title and that kernel of wisdom from Anger’s trashy tell-all, focusing on an alarming phenomenon from the late 1920s and early ’30s — before anyone dared to label such entertainment “art” — in which so many industry types took their own lives.

Reviewed at Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Los Angeles, Nov. 14, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 189 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount Pictures release and presentation of a Marc Platt, Wild Chickens, Organism Pictures production. Producers: Marc Platt, Matthew Plouffe, Olivia Hamilton. Executive producers: Michael Beugg, Tobey Maguire, Wyck Godfrey, Helen Estabrook, Adam Siegel.
• Crew: Director, writer: Damien Chazelle. Camera: Linus Sandgren. Editor: Tom Cross. Music: Justin Hurwitz.
• With: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, P.J. Byrne, Lukas Haas, Olivia Hamilton, Tobey Maguire, Max Minghella, Rory Scovel, Katherine Waterston, Flea, Jeff Garlin, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Samara Weaving, Olivia Wilde.

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What Rotten Tomatoes Reviews Are Saying About Babylon

Some may argue that we are living in an age of the "critic-proof" blockbuster, but with an auteur-driven project like Damien Chazelle's upcoming old Hollywood epic "Babylon," prospective viewers might be particularly attuned to what the film critic crowd has to say about the film.

"Babylon" has an expansive ensemble cast, led by Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, and bolstered by such ringers as Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist and occasional actor Flea, Jeff Garlin, Eric Roberts, and many more. It has an expansive runtime to go with it, clocking in at three hours and eight minutes – another factor that might have indecisive viewers seeking critical guidance.

So, is "Babylon" another great Hollywood myth about itself in the tradition of "Sunset Blvd," "Singin' in the Rain," or "The Bad and the Beautiful"? Or is it more of a throwback to bloated, out-of-control epics like "Cleopatra" or "Doctor Dolittle"? Here's what film critics who have already filed their takes on the movie, set to open wide on the upcoming holiday weekend, had to say.

The film currently has a respectable Tomatometer score

If you've been looking forward to catching "Babylon" in theaters (three-hour runtime and all), you'll be pleased to know that with 49 reviews and counting on Rotten Tomatoes , critical response to the film is much more positive than negative, with a Tomatometer score of 71 percent as of this writing.

Beth Webb of Empire Online describes the film as "[a] daring, formally audacious yet messy ode to cinema from one of the most enterprising filmmakers working today. Bravura and baffling in equal measure" in her review, which awards the film three out of five stars.

That kind of mixed praise seems to be something of a motif, at least in the reviews of "Babylon" that have made it online so far. Moira MacDonald of the Seattle Times is even more ambivalent, admitting "I can't say I truly enjoyed watching 'Babylon,' or that I'd ever want to see it again, but I definitely haven't stopped thinking about it since screening it," an assessment that will either encourage or discourage you from giving the movie a try, depending on what type of moviegoer you are.

But Edward Douglas of The Weekend Warrior is unreservedly enthusiastic in his review. "Damien Chazelle's tribute to Old Hollywood is absolutely nuts in the best possible way," Douglas says.

But of course, when even a movie's positive reviews seem a little exasperated by a movie, you can expect a few pans as well.

Not all critics have been enthusiastic

Interestingly, some of the more negative reviews of "Babylon" seen on Rotten Tomatoes seem to paint a similar picture of the movie. Kristy Puchko of Mashable calls it "a ghastly, sticky, indulgent mess of a movie, slinging shock value in lieu of anything interesting to say," while Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair says "[i]t begins to feel, as 'Babylon' stretches out across three hours and eight minutes, that Chazelle has no clear idea where all of this is going."

At Cup of Soul, Kathia Woods compares "Babylon" to other Hollywood auto-epics, and finds it lacking by comparison: "Many films have been made about the beginnings of the film industry, and the majority of them have been informative and entertaining, but 'Babylon' is not one of them."

It appears that the one word everyone can agree on to describe "Babylon" would likely be "polarizing," and it will be interesting to see how its Tomatometer score holds up as more and more reviews come in. And its audience score, which will probably start racking up votes in the near future, will be interesting to watch as well.

You'll be able to make your own decision about the film's artistic value when "Babylon" opens wide in the US on December 23, 2022.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Uneven historical Hollywood epic has sex, drugs, and blood.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie is a tribute to the idea that movies (an

Lots of morally ambiguous characters. Manny has a

Among principal cast, two are men of color: Manny

Several characters die by suicide, violence, overd

Several scenes of people engaging in graphic simul

Extremely strong, constant language includes count

The studio names are real, as are several landmark

Frequent use/overuse of alcohol and drugs, as well

Parents need to know that Babylon is a sprawling, mature drama about the importance of art -- in this case, the early days of cinema. Expect much stronger, more frequent language than in writer-director Damien Chazelle's first three movies, with countless uses of "f--k," plus "s--t," "bitch," and more. There…

Positive Messages

The movie is a tribute to the idea that movies (and art) last forever, even if everyone involved in them dies. Manny describes the magic of movie making as doing something that lasts and means something. The story also elevates popular culture as important.

Positive Role Models

Lots of morally ambiguous characters. Manny has a kind heart and helps several people, including Nellie and Sidney, get ahead and succeed at their jobs. Jack may drink too much and not be a faithful husband, but he's a good actor and friend. Nellie, despite her many issues, is ambitious and cares about her father and Manny.

Diverse Representations

Among principal cast, two are men of color: Manny (Diego Calva) is Mexican and Sidney (Jovan Adepo) is Black; other lead characters are White. Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), a supporting character, is Chinese American. Movie explores how all three are exploited and discriminated against in the entertainment industry. Also shows how women were mistreated in the old studio system.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Several characters die by suicide, violence, overdose. One character shoots himself; actual act isn't visible, but blood is shown hitting a bathroom wall. Another character attempts suicide several times (occasionally in a way that's depicted as humorous, like getting his head stuck in a toilet) before succeeding (off camera). A character "fights" with a rattlesnake and is bitten in the neck. She survives, but blood, pus, and venom are shown coming out of the wound. An assassin kills multiple people in cold blood. Two characters are shown a multilevel BDSM-looking underground club with several creepy and violent acts, including a masked person eating an animal, and women fighting in a cage. Person killed by being struck in the neck by spiked weapon. People die on movie sets: an extra who's impaled on a medieval movie set (others are injured), a crew member who dies of heat exhaustion from being locked in a box.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Several scenes of people engaging in graphic simulated sexual acts in semi-public (including during an orgy at a party). Some full-frontal nudity, as well as topless women performing. Nonsexual nudity, too, but most does involve sex -- e.g., an actress keeps pulling on her dress to show her breasts and also ices her nipples so they'll constantly show through in scenes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Extremely strong, constant language includes countless uses of "f--k," plus "s--t," "goddamn," "ass," "a--hole," "p---y," "hell," "pr--k," "c--k," "c--ksucker," "t-ts," and more. At least one use of the "N" word. Spanish-language curses like "cabrón," "puta," etc. Bathroom humor includes an elephant that defecates a lot directly on two assistants.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

The studio names are real, as are several landmarks (restaurant and hotels) and old American cars.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Frequent use/overuse of alcohol and drugs, as well as cigarette smoking. Several people get so drunk/high that they black out or need help functioning. People snort cocaine from what looks like a mound of the drug. Characters also take pills, use ether, and drink absinthe, wine, cocktails, and more. One crew member moonlights as a drug dealer. A character dies of an overdose.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Babylon is a sprawling, mature drama about the importance of art -- in this case, the early days of cinema. Expect much stronger, more frequent language than in writer-director Damien Chazelle 's first three movies, with countless uses of "f--k," plus "s--t," "bitch," and more. There's also a lot of nudity, graphic simulated sex (including an early orgy sequence), drinking, and drug use (cocaine, ether, pills, etc.), as well as bloody violence (people die from gunshots, suicide, movie set accidents, overdoses, and more). On the plus side, the cast is more diverse than in Chazelle's previous movies, with the three most prominent characters being a Mexican man (Diego Calva), a White woman ( Margot Robbie ), and a Black man ( Jovan Adepo ) -- all of whom face discrimination. Brad Pitt also appears as a silent film star who doesn't adapt to talkies as well as everyone assumed he would. This is a story of the excesses of early Hollywood and the people involved in it (hence the city of the title), but it's also about the magic of the movies, regardless of the sacrifices, corruption, and debauchery that surround the industry. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (17)
• Kids say (18)

Based on 17 parent reviews

Awful “torture sex scene” descent into hell not needed. Felt depressed after seeing this movie. Wish I could erase it from my brain,

Don't waste your money or 3 hours of your life, what's the story.

Writer-director Damien Chazelle' s BABYLON is a sprawling chronicle of the early days of Hollywood, pulling back the curtain to show the wild, unrestrained sex, drugs, and violence of the industry during its transition from silent films into the talking era. There are two main stories in play, starting in 1926. One is about how three young hopefuls -- Manny (Diego Calva), an earnest Mexican American production assistant; Nellie ( Margot Robbie ), an edgy Jersey girl ready for her close-up; and talented Black jazz musician Sidney ( Jovan Adepo ) -- all end up trying to make it at roughly the same time in motion pictures. Meanwhile, handsome, hard-drinking Jack Conrad ( Brad Pitt ), a silent film star, realizes that talkies could spell the end of his relevance if he doesn't adapt with them. On the fringes are a large cast of other industry workers, including a woman director, crew members, a sultry Chinese American singer (Li Jun Lee) who'd happily take any role, and the producers, agents, gossip columnists, and reviewers who make show business run.

Is It Any Good?

It's overlong, gratuitous, and self-indulgent, but this epic about Hollywood's origins has enough standout performances and cameos to make it worth watching. Chazelle isn't subtle in portraying early Hollywood as an industry and city of debauchery and excess, showing how "anything goes" in show business. Jack, an international silent film star, can do no wrong on screen, and he's (mostly) a genuinely good guy, even if he's a terrible husband and overly fond of drinking. Only Pitt, or possibly his close pal George Clooney, could have played this role in such a humanizing way. It's an overt reference to Gene Kelly's legendary character Don Lockwood from Singin' in the Rain -- which perhaps makes Nellie an example of all the Lina Lamonts, beautiful and riveting in the silent era but unable to transition into talkies because of a lack of elocution. Then there's Calva, who's fabulous as Manny -- with his big, expressive eyes that convey wonder at everything around him, until even he's beaten down by the compromises and corruption of the industry.

If there's anything that Chazelle seems to love as much as the move industry, it's jazz, and music plays a central role in his story. Adepo is terrific as the young bandleader who knows he's ready to be more than just background music. But if modern Hollywood is still struggling with racism, how much more prevalent was it in its inception? Everyone struggles with their place in the system, and it's only when writer Elinor St. John ( Jean Smart , pitch-perfect as usual) spells it out for Jack that he understands. The people in front of or behind the camera don't matter nearly as much as the work itself -- or at least what it represents to the audience. Despite all of the notable performances and the technical mastery of everyone from composer Justin Hurwitz to cinematographer Linus Sandgren, the movie has some fairly big flaws. The bloated run time becomes self-indulgent after a while, and the uneven storytelling and pacing make Babylon feel like movies by the Coen Brothers, David O. Russell, and Quentin Tarantino all rolled into one. Ultimately, it's like Chazelle has simultaneously too much and not enough to say, so he's just doing everything all at once -- and, in this case, it can have less impact than he intended. Still, for those interested, watching Babylon on the big screen is a must. You may end up appreciating it more than you enjoy it, but it's proof that the auteur theory is alive and kicking with Damien Chazelle.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the amount of nudity and substance use portrayed in Babylon . Is it necessary to the story, or does it seem gratuitous?

How does this movie fit in with director Damien Chazelle's previous films ( La La Land , etc.)? What do you think he's trying to say about the nature of art? Does the "magic" outweigh the negative, corrupt, even evil aspects?

Talk about the violence in the movie. Does realistic violence, especially death by suicide, impact viewers differently than stylized violence?

Which of the flawed characters would you still consider a role model, if any? What character strengths do they display?

For those who've seen Singin' in the Rain , what do you think of this movie's relevance to that? What about the references to all of those other big movies?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 23, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : January 31, 2023
• Cast : Brad Pitt , Margot Robbie , Diego Calva
• Director : Damien Chazelle
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Paramount Pictures
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Friendship , History , Music and Sing-Along
• Run time : 189 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, bloody violence, drug use, and pervasive language
• Award : Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Winner
• Last updated : June 20, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Audiences are sharing their thoughts on Babylon as early reactions to the outlandish Hollywood-centered film prove polarizing. Babylon is the upcoming project from acclaimed writer/director Damien Chazelle, the filmmaker behind Whiplash , La La Land , and First Man . The movie stars Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Tobey Maguire, and others as various characters navigating a life of outrageous excess and ambition during Hollywood's transition from silent film to talkies during the Roaring '20s.With Chazelle's Babylon set to premiere just before Christmas, early reactions are a mixed bag of extremes, from very positive notices to some calling the film a mess. Advance viewers took to Twitter to share their thoughts, with many calling Babylon high-energy and praising the costuming and acting, particularly Robbie and Calva's performances . On the other hand, some viewers find fault with the movie's tonal variance, one-note characters, and outrageous debauchery. Check out some reactions below: Related: Brad Pitt's Most Exciting 2022 Movie Repeats OUATIH's Genius Trick

What To Expect From Damien Chazelle's Babylon

If Babylon's early reactions are any indication, the movie is every bit the ambitious, drug-fueled odyssey that the trailer made it appear to be. But its ambition and chaotic energy appeal to only some viewers, with many indicating that the messy structure and apparent lack of focus hurt the film the most. From a visual and performance perspective, however, the film appears like a winner, which is not surprising considering the all-star ensemble cast and Oscar-nominated cinematography of Linus Sandgren, a regular collaborator of Chazelle's.

Notably, most reactions include mentions of excessive drug use, a seemingly common habit in 20s-era Hollywood. Therefore, the film's coke-fueled vitality appears to be its driving force, resonating through nearly every positive or negative aspect of Babylon . Conversely, very few reactions make any mention of Pitt aside from a few mentioning his character's balcony dancing sequence from the Babylon trailer. The lack of references to the veteran actor could mean that Robbie and Calva's performances are simply that spectacular, but it could also imply a conscious effort to overlook Pitt due to the ongoing allegations of his child abuse by Angelina Jolie.

Despite Pitt's controversial appearance - which could lead some prospective viewers to boycott the film - and the criticisms regarding Babylon's tone, the polarizing reactions are sure to generate even more intrigue. Cinephiles already expected Babylon to be Oscar bait thanks to director Chazelle's various nominations and wins, the film's period setting, cast, and its themes surrounding Golden Age Hollywood . However, now many early reactions are also criticizing the movie. Some possible viewers who are on the fence about seeing Babylon could use the polarizing reports as motivation to judge the project for themselves. Either way, Chazelle's upcoming film, set to premiere in late December, will likely continue to divide passionate film fans and general audiences up to the 2023 Oscar ceremony, where it is almost certain to have some sort of impact.

Read Next: Brad Pitt's 2022 Movies Will Remind You How Great He Really Is

Source: Various (See links above)

Key Release Dates

• Babylon (2022)

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Babylon Reviews

[A] creditable slice-of-life drama...

Full Review | Oct 15, 2020

Franco Rosso's film Babylon is a hidden gem when it comes to authentic explorations of institutional racism and the immigrant experience.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2020

The central M.C. is played by Brinsley Forde, leader of the British reggae band, Aswad; his musical presence is just one element of authenticity in a movie that never strikes a false note.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 22, 2020

With its vivid cinematography, incredible soundtrack, and powerful message... It has become an icon of its time and a cinematic classic, influencing generations of artists.

Full Review | Feb 24, 2020

The film is also visually rich. Every minute is filled with the details of a period and milieu that's rarely so crisp on film.

Full Review | Jan 2, 2020

It's a really vivid life at a certain part of life.

Full Review | Sep 24, 2019

Rosso's rough-and-tumble portrait of immigrant life in the slums of Thatcher's England arrives in American theaters 39 years late and depressingly right on time.

Full Review | May 20, 2019

This 2019 release feels uncomfortably apt.

Full Review | Apr 23, 2019

A new restoration of this 1980 British cult classic makes plain that its themes of disaffection and racial discord in south London are still relevant nearly four decades later.

Full Review | Apr 18, 2019

Powerful and shocking, 'Babylon' is possibly one of the most important films you'll see this year.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 5, 2019

Babylon's cultural specificity is what gives it power, putting it as much in a tradition of British alienated youth movies.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 4, 2019

in many ways clumsy and ham-fisted [yet] there's something to the movie that cannot be so easily dismissed.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 1, 2019

"Babylon" burns with an energy and candid intensity rarely seen in mainstream movies.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 21, 2019

An entertaining and culturally significant film that exposes much more than the world of reggae dancehall. It's a fitting companion piece to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 19, 2019

A cinematic shot of energy that combines a proto-stoner comedy, a gritty musical and a nihilistic call-to-arms into an excoriation of Thatcher-era racism and poverty.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 17, 2019

Assertive and ebullient, "Babylon" is as alive as a movie can be to the everyday mesh of liberating art, humorous camaraderie and hazardous political reality.

Full Review | Mar 14, 2019

Babylon is a hidden gem worth seeking out if it comes to your city.

Full Review | Mar 12, 2019

...revealing and raw in its political and sociological spectrum. Unapologetically radical, intrusive and emotionally gripping...a blistering commentary...

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 10, 2019

Babylon is a pulsating document of a time and place as well as a piece of connective tissue from the past to the present.

Full Review | Mar 8, 2019

The movie is more interested in what feels real than what seems right.

Full Review | Mar 7, 2019

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‘Babylon Berlin’ Review: Dancing While the World Begins to Burn

The long-awaited fourth season of the cult-favorite German thriller takes place in 1931, with the Nazis not quite in power.

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By Mike Hale

Far from the eyes of Emmy voters or the digital gremlins compiling streaming Top 10 lists, there is a series — a German period drama, of all things — that a small core of aficionados would argue is the world’s best television show.

Some of their fondness may have to do with absence. It has been more than four years since a new season of “Babylon Berlin” became available in the United States. And the first three seasons, which resided formerly on Netflix, moved this year to MHz Choice, a boutique streamer of international series and films whose (unreported) subscription figures would probably constitute a good morning’s uptick for Netflix.

So if you are part of the cult — tracking the right subreddit , commiserating with a Facebook friend group of the requisite sophistication — it is a very big deal that the 12-episode fourth season of “Babylon Berlin,” shown in Germany in 2022, is finally premiering on MHz Choice in the United States on Tuesday. (To answer the immediate questions: $7.99 a month, seven-day free trial, and the full season will be up by July 30.)

Based on historical mystery novels by the German writer Volker Kutscher , the show is a sleek, louchely sexy blend of police procedural, love story, Freudian melodrama and expensively rendered costume epic. All of the elements (with the occasional exception of the heavy psychological symbolism) are juggled with finesse by the show’s creator-writer-directors, Achim von Borries, Henk Handloegten and Tom Tykwer. (Bettine von Borries and Khyana el Bitar are also credited as writers in Season 4.)

The balls stay in the air with the mesmerizing rhythm of one of the cabaret acts at the show’s fictional nightclub, Moka Efti; the effect can be, to use the favorite descriptor among “Babylon Berlin” fans, addictive. The series — and the fourth season in particular, which has a story line involving the gathering of Berlin’s criminal gangs — has been compared to “M,” the great 1931 thriller by the German director Fritz Lang. But a better comparison would be to Lang silents like “Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler” and “Spies,” intricately assembled thrillers that are some of the most deluxe entertainments ever put on film.

It helps, of course, that the place and time the show inhabits are Berlin in the Weimar era of the 1920s and early ’30s, a ready-made backdrop of artistic, cultural and sexual ferment in a city headed toward political and social catastrophe. The action hopscotches from police labs to the soundstages of expressionist films, from munitions factories to beer halls, from baronial manors to squalid tenements, with a studious devotion to the quality and evocativeness of costumes, sets and locations.

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