Critic Reviews
85
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
13(87%)
mixed
2(13%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 15 Critic Reviews
Dec 7, 2011
100
Here's where it's easiest to see Clouzot's advantage over his more famous peer, as he combines nail-biting action scenes - calibrated to the millimeter - with a Hawksian command of earthy performances.
Jul 1, 2020
100
The film's extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema.
Jul 1, 2020
100
Wages of Fear is the kind of motion picture for which commonplace phrases like "white-knuckle tension ride" have been coined.
Jul 1, 2020
100
Deriving endless anxiety from brawny men moving as gingerly as possible, it’s a riveting anti-action movie, one of the most memorable high-concept pictures ever made in Europe.
Jul 1, 2020
100
Clouzot achieves an analysis of the human condition at least as bleak as Huston's The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre but without the grandstanding speeches and with more subtle performances.
Jul 1, 2020
100
An existential thriller--the most original and shocking French melodrama of the 50s.
Jul 1, 2020
90
The inspired calculation of action and agonised human reaction is irresistible and inescapable. It is a film that leaves the audience shattered and exhausted.
Jul 1, 2020
88
One of the most deeply and disturbingly nihilistic films ever made, as well as one of the most heart-pounding thrillers. [06 Mar 1992, p.C2]
Jul 1, 2020
80
A precursor of The Wild Bunch, it is an expertly directed, personally felt film.
