SummaryAydin (Haluk Bilginer), a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities.
Directed By:Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Written By:Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Anton Chekhov
Winter Sleep
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
88
User score
Universal Acclaim
8.3
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Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
93% Positive
25 Reviews
25 Reviews
7% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
May 21, 2015
100
Such miserable people; why should we care? Maybe because Ceylan does. By staging this petulant misery in a snow-filled world of melancholy, unearthly beauty, he underscores their tragedy.
Jan 3, 2015
100
I love it, not simply because I love Chekhov or because I've loved so much of Ceylan's earlier work. I love it because the director, having come into his own as a master international filmmaker years ago, gives us so much to see and think about, so many astringent observations about life's compromises and longings.
User score
Universal Acclaim
87% Positive
111 Ratings
111 Ratings
8% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
5% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
Jan 30, 2017
10
This movie tells a true story. Not about true events but about true people. Main character of film is as real as I am, or maybe even you. He have his flaws that he can't see. He isn't bad to the bone, but he can hurt others with premeditation. This screenplay can make you to think about how blind sometimes we are to our own devils.
Jul 26, 2015
10
Excellent from beginning to end. The play-like dialogues are flawlessly acted, and they stay captivating because of the brilliant writing which intertwines the complex study of an interesting character with relevant observasions on human psychology, ethical conundrums and class differences.
May 24, 2014
100
Nuri Bilge Ceylan is at the peak of his powers with Winter Sleep, a richly engrossing and ravishingly beautiful magnum opus that surely qualifies as the least boring 196-minute movie ever made.
Dec 17, 2014
90
This isn’t merely about the follies of a misanthrope, it’s an epic tragedy about life in the Ivory Tower and the inability to understand—much less empathize with—other human beings.
May 24, 2014
80
When the film gets outdoors, it soars, and Ceylan continues to dig with acute intelligence into the dark corners of everyday human behaviour.
Dec 18, 2014
75
Beautiful to look at, with its burnished interiors and magnificent Turkish steppes, this long film builds to a powerful conclusion. Ceylan’s characters grind each other to a powder while hardly raising their voices.
May 24, 2014
50
The overwriting of every single discussion smacks less of realistic debate than of a writer/director in the throes of a fit of didacticism who simply never trusts his audience to get his meaning without it being iterated and reiterated to the point of white noise.
May 18, 2015
10
The film itself will be hard to follow and like (as it has an extremely ambitious running time of three hours and that the film is mostly filled with long conversations), but the end result is rewarding. Nuri Bilge Ceylan has made a epic film that deals with power and the struggling relationship between the wealthy and the poor. A film that requires your immediate attention (and attention necessary to finish the film).
Dec 19, 2014
10
With a cast of the best Turkish actors at this moment, Nuri Bilge Ceylan made something beautiful here and it's gonna stay with me for a very long time.
Sep 25, 2020
9
This movie feels like you're peeking into the lives of these characters, and it can be very awkward. The story is, basically, a conflict between a landlord and a tenant. The main landlord is kind of an **** He's snobbish and condescending, but the tenant isn't the most likeable either. These characters feel like people. Flawed and conflicted. Their story is more fascinating to watch that it would seem at first. The film is very long and very slow, but instead of being boring, it's relaxing, despite how unrelaxed the characters may be (they spend a lot of the time arguing). It's also really tense. Tense and relaxing. Oddly nostalgic. If I were to compare it to a more recent movie, that would be Hu Bo's An Elephant Sitting Still.
Sep 6, 2017
9
Winter Sleep is a beautiful, well-deserved winner of the Palm D' Or in Cannes in 2014 and undoubtedly is one of the less boring films that surpasses the three hours of duration,
Immense, intimate and incisive and very spoken, the film will be confined in art tones beyond the conventional cinema, thanks to its enormous duration but the rewards of its story arrive if you deepen enough .
Jun 17, 2019
5
Another boring communist fairy tale. It verges on venturing into some interesting subjects, but never really does, and the pace is monumentally slow. The only upside is you get a peek into modern day Turkey. For all it's worth
Production Company:
- NBC Film
- Memento Films Production
- Bredok Filmproduction
- Arte France Cinéma
- Mars Entertainment Group
- Imaj
- Eurimages
- Sinema Genel Müdürlügü
- ARTE
- Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
- L'Aide aux cinémas du monde
- Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC)
- Ministère des Affaires Étrangères
- Institut français
- The Post Republic
- Sony
- Zeynofilm
- Nulook Production
Release Date:Dec 19, 2014
Duration:3 h 16 m
Website:
Awards
Turkish Film Critics Association (SIYAD) Awards
• 6 Wins & 13 Nominations
European Film Awards
• 3 Nominations
Cannes Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
