X
- 2014
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 2 h 30 m
- 2014
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 2 h 30 m
Summary Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the life of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually liv...
Directed By: Mike Leigh
Written By: Mike Leigh
- 2014
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 2 h 30 m
- 2014
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 2 h 30 m
Mr. Turner
6.9
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Summary Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the life of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually liv...
Directed By: Mike Leigh
Written By: Mike Leigh
Where to Watch
Coming Soon
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 44 Critic Reviews
94
98% Positive
43 Reviews
43 Reviews
2% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 44 Critic Reviews
94
98% Positive
43 Reviews
43 Reviews
2% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Jul 14, 2015
A movie as bold and deep as a Turner landscape, as sharp as light on water.
Dec 22, 2014
Leigh's film — one of the year's best — honors its subject in all his tetchy ambiguity.
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 173 User Ratings
6.9
69% Positive
120 Ratings
120 Ratings
16% Mixed
27 Ratings
27 Ratings
15% Negative
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 173 User Ratings
6.9
69% Positive
120 Ratings
120 Ratings
16% Mixed
27 Ratings
27 Ratings
15% Negative
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
Apr 29, 2025
"Mr. Turner" does almost the opposite of what most biopics do, and in doing so so affectively, practically blows them all out of the water. It's superbly crafted technically with an amazing performance from Timothy Spall, creating a portrait, or a painting of Turner's life thats overall impact amazes you. Rarely, if ever have I seen a period drama so well immersed in its time. The dialect as well has been converted a couple of centuries back and the actors seem to inhabit this world seamlessly. Leigh does not want to flaunt the period, he just shows what is there. Timothy Spall's performance embodies the film itself. He is very unlike anyone else in the film in his behavior and how he bumbles through his life. His snarls and grunts are their own language, and his mannerisms are inconsistent, but we never get the false sense that he's bipolar or has multiple personalities. He is animalistic, intellectual, caring, and disdainful, all of these things, and yet none of them alone. The core of his soul is mysterious, impossible to dig out, yet many characters in the film attempt to define him and his paintings, and Spall's Turner doesn't seem to understand the meaning of definition. Spall is also so much fun to watch, and he's often very funny if you want to see it that way, and sometimes it's obviously funny. This is not the kind of movie where the character changes or realizes anything, he just is. And Spall's performance embodies this man who just is. I couldn't say enough about his performance, and maybe saying things is not the best way to describe it. Gary Yershon's score is actually quite eerie, but it's great. The cinematography from **** Pope is at times breathtaking, with many shots looking like paintings and with the sun and glow of Turner's work replicated everywhere. The production design and costumes are stunningly authentic. It does not try to impress with the production elements or use an upward moving crane shot of the town center to establish the bustling times with a flute-based score to lead the mood like many biopics might. There is no "Rosebud" in Mr. Turner. It is not a movie that attempts to define the man, boil him down to one flaw, truth, or desire, it is a portrait of the life of a man who would see something in nature and feel like painting it. Art aficionados in the film attempt to discover the meaning of Turner's work, as Turner listens, and we see that he has no such intention to make his paintings mean any particular thing. That is exactly the point of the film itself, to create a biopic that rids our notion to define the protagonist, to find the meaning in a life, or life itself, because how can one really carve an entire life into anything? When Mr. Turner ended, I was amazed that with this two and-a-half hour biopic, that Mike Leigh made a film that put nothing into borders, with no conventional storyline but that I wanted nothing more out of. I knew that I had seen the essence of Turner's life, and in a world where we have a desire to find exactly what everything is and what it means, Mr. Turner makes the case that nothing can be any thing, it all just is. For sure, a masterpiece.
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Oct 13, 2018
Compelling painting in movement of the life of eccentric painter William Turner, performed masterly by Timothy Spall.
Respected and mocked in the Victorean age, and his complex liaison with his closest ones. Even are remarkable the age screenplay and the makeup. A shall to see.
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Dec 16, 2014
Leigh, Spall, and cinematographer Dick Pope — who borrows lots of lighting tricks from Vermeer and Ingres and even Turner himself, to glorious effect — have gently atomized Turner's character, breaking it into small, potent fragments that affect us in ways we don't see coming.
Mar 1, 2015
Relaxed editing and well-researched set and costumes give us a firm feeling of the period, and Dick Pope (who has worked with Leigh 10 times) excels. It’s a cliche to say a cinematographer does painterly work, but Pope suffuses the screen with light in the way Turner did his canvases.
Jan 28, 2015
There is little in the way of narrative eventfulness in the film, but Leigh luxuriates in the moments, and provides glimpses of what it takes to be an artist amid the fray.
Dec 17, 2014
Spall is best known for his supporting performances (Winston Churchill in “The King’s Speech,” Peter Pettigrew in the “Harry Potter” films). But he’s among the highest class of character actor, able to make a role of any size his own. Leigh has given Spall the gift of a lifetime in J.M.W. Turner.
Dec 17, 2014
Mr. Spall, winner of the Cannes and New York Film Critics Circle best-actor awards, does his best to bring an unpleasant character to life — grunting and snorting like a boar ready to charge, spitting on his canvases and dragging around with a constant wince like a fat baby with colic. With all due respect, he’s too repulsive to watch for 150 minutes.
Aug 6, 2016
Oh my is Mr. Turner a slog to get through. Slow, dreadfully dull, and as precise as surgery, Mr. Turner is a film that is marvelously directed, acted, and shot, but sitting in the DMV has proved to be more engaging. This film's cinematography is other worldly and cinematographer **** Pope has provided some of the best shots of the decade with his work here. Unfortunately, the film is skin deep. It is like a hot girl that thinks she is smart, but is actually really dumb and lacks personality. I rarely call a film pretentious, but I feel as though Mr. Turner fits the bill. Hollow and packed to the brim with self-importance, the appeal of Mr. Turner is wholly lost on me. It gets as high a rating as it does from me for a few reasons: the aforementioned cinematography (particularly the slow pans from characters to shots of scenery are brilliant), the costume design, and the production design. All of these leave the film being a visual masterpiece of the highest order. Yet, the story elements and character elements are all beyond lackluster and lacking any sort of depth. The writing here is quite poor and the film is overlong. It would have been well served to actually develop its characters and cut some of the runtime. As it stands, Mr. Turner is all beauty and no brains.
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Jul 20, 2015
The most accurate review of this film might be one of Timothy Spall’s grunts. I like the film best when it depicts Turner’s work as an artist, when it mirrors the visionary landscapes of his painting, and when it surveys his relationships with the art and artists of his time. I’m less interested in his domestic arrangements, manners, and health. In fact, the whole “brute with a sublime soul” business seems rather cheap and obvious, as most artists' lives look messy, sad, and coarse next to their art. I agree with reviewers who claim that the film is nearly an hour too long, though we probably wouldn’t agree on which scenes to cut. I think most viewers will concur, however, that “Mr. Turner” is not a film for small screens; if you can’t see it in a theater, then hold out for a large high-resolution video screen. I watched it on a tablet, which I regret.
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Feb 27, 2015
Extremely disappointed. From other reviews, I was expecting a decent portrayal of Turner's artistic life, quirks, passions and lots of landscape colors. I got those, but not in a very cohesive manner. Instead, you got a poor script that had no flow or continuity- kept jumping around and you were trying to make sense of a scene as to what it was saying and why it was there and then you were somewhere else in an instant. As for Turner's character, you needn't have thought it was an international film- if you like scowling, grunting and growling, they are universal in any language. When Turner wasn't doing the foregoing, he talked like he had marbles in his mouth. I usually don't have problems understanding British dialect having lived over there for a long time, but I had problems with getting the lines in this film- mostly because he never opened his mouth except to pout. I can understand a generally grumpy personality, but this portrayal kept pulling me out of the realm of credibility- here sits Mrs. Booth (his pseudo-wife at the end of his life), smiling brightly like the sun in the sky, smiling coquettishly at a squinty-eyed Scrooge- we're really supposed to believe that anyone could be attracted to such a man as portrayed? Bah Humbug! (I kept expecting him to say it at any moment.) It really was a shame because the cinematography, music, costumes and production design were all Oscar worthy (for which they were nominated and I agreed). It should have been also nominated for human sound effects- if they could just reshoot it without them, it would have been a much better film!
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Dec 28, 2014
A beautifully crafted,dismal, degrading and hugely disappointing descent into a narrow depiction of a small slice of Turner's life. The film hardly relates to his painting process or what it meant and felt to him at all, in fact it gives the impression that his art was just something he did as an occupation and something wholly inconsequential. Instead it focused entirely on every bit of negativity of his life and character, spiced with a couple of well known incidents handled in a halfhearted manner in an effort at convincing us that this is still the man we came to see. The non-existing story line rambles on at the later part of his life and is more a socio-cultural portrait of the environment he lived in, filled with sickly, ugly pathological men and women, living in stuffy repressed times, stumbling on to their shabby graves. The film does not touch upon his childhood or background, his growth and passion for art, the technicalities and extraordinary development of his work, and the undoubtedly ecstatic states he must have derived from the fulfilling moments of his efforts. Absolutely nothing to show us and touch us about what drove and inspired the man. Nothing about the flight, the journey, the adventure. Given that he was such a profound artist and his visual understanding was a century before his time, it is mind boggling that everything that truly matters about him has been sidelined and that instead we are served a mean and mediocre extract of the least interesting little parts of this genius's life and personality. What a let down, no wonder the 'top critics' love it. The filming, lighting, ambiance and visuals are flawless and duly equaled by a wonderful cast of great actors... What a wasted opportunity! What a perverse disappointment.
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Production Company
- Amusement Park Films
- British Film Institute (BFI)
- Canal+
- Ciné+
- Diaphana Production
- Film4
- Focus Features International (FFI)
- Focus Features
- France 3 Cinéma
- Ingenious Media
- Lipsync Productions
- Thin Man Films
- Untitled 13
- Xofa Productions
Release Date Dec 19, 2014
Duration 2 h 30 m
Rating R
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 4 Nominations
London Critics Circle Film Awards
• 1 Win & 7 Nominations
International Cinephile Society Awards
• 1 Win & 5 Nominations
