Barry Jenkins
Moonlight
7.4 
9.9A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood.
- Director: Barry Jenkins
- Main Cast: Trevante Rhodes, Janelle Monáe, André Holland
- Soundtrack: Nicholas Britell
- Cinematography: James Laxton
- Screenplay: Barry Jenkins
Cinema Premiere: February 17, 2017
English Reviews
24 english reviews of Moonlight (2016)
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10 / 10
It’s a masterpiece — an overused word, but not the wrong one.
- John Anderson -
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10 / 10
"Moonlight" is a piece of art that will transform lives long after it leaves theaters.
- Gregory Ellwood -
10 / 10
A haunting reflection on African American masculinity, writer-director Barry Jenkins' intimate character study traces the life of a Black gay man from his troubled Miami childhood to maturity.
- David Rooney -
10 / 10
"Moonlight" transforms rage and frustration into unadulterated intimacy.
- Eric Kohn -
10 / 10
"Moonlight" is quietly devastating in its depiction of masculinity, race, poverty and identity.
- Tim Grierson -
10 / 10
It’s a thrilling, deeply necessary work that opens up a much-needed and rarely approached on-screen conversation about the nature of gay masculinity.
- Benjamin Lee -
10 / 10
It’s in the final scenes of the film—in which Jenkins knows he’s laid the groundwork, trusts his actors and allows the emotions of what’s unsaid to provide the dramatic thrust—that "Moonlight" makes its greatest impact. Jenkins deeply understands that it is human connection that forms us, that changes our trajectory and makes us who we are.
- Brian Tallerico -
10 / 10
"Moonlight" takes the pain of growing up and turns it into hardened scars and private caresses. This film is, without a doubt, the reason we go to the movies: to understand, to come closer, to ache, hopefully with another.
- Joshua Rothkopf -
10 / 10
"Moonlight" is a coming-of-age movie, and a love story, that leaves you feeling both stripped bare and restored, slightly better prepared to step out and face the world of people around you, with all the confounding challenges they present. There’s not much more you can ask from a movie.
- Stephanie Zacharek -
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10 / 10
"Moonlight" captures the limitations of masculine conventions in an incredibly sympathetic, deeply felt way.
- Darren Ruecker -
10 / 10
"Moonlight", one of the very best films of the year so far, is a reminder that underneath our pain, each of us want the same things — comfort, shelter, and a space in which we can be ourselves.
- Nico Lang -
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10 / 10
Hype would bruise Barry Jenkins’s "Moonlight", which is so delicate in its touch that the usual superlatives sound unusually shrill. It’s the gentlest, most suggestive of great films.
- David Edelstein -
10 / 10
"Moonlight" is magic. So intimate you feel like you're trespassing on its characters souls, so transcendent it's made visual and emotional poetry out of intensely painful experience, it's a film that manages to be both achingly familiar and unlike anything we've seen before.
- Kenneth Turan -
10 / 10
"Moonlight", which announces Jenkins as a major filmmaker, gets you good. It stays raw from first scene to last.
- Peter Travers -
10 / 10
"Moonlight" floats the idea that we’re shaped most by the people in our lives
- A. A. Dowd -
8.8 / 10
If the story’s trajectory seems familiar, that’s because "Moonlight" is grounded in real, common occurrences. Its power comes not through surprising and unexpected narrative developments but as a result of our identification with the characters. That’s a rare and welcome thing for a movie to achieve.
- James Berardinelli -
7.5 / 10
Jenkins moves the story along with a tempo often slow-paced enough to seem trancelike. He captures the stillnesses in these people’s lives. His deliberately “poetic” approach is often at odds with the hard-edged narrative.
- Peter Rainer -
6.3 / 10
What tends to right "Moonlight", even when Jenkins’s style drifts into indulgence, is the strength of its actors.
- Sam C. Mac
Foreign Reviews
15 foreign reviews of Moonlight (2016)
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10 / 10
Translated from swedish: This is an ultra-realistic film about growing up as an African-American with drugs, bullying, homosexuality and crime, and surviving against all odds.
- Annika AnderssonSwedish: moviezine.se »
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10 / 10
Translated from swedish: A beautiful and touching story about Chiron, a young black gay man who grows up in a tough part of Miami marked by drugs and crime.
- Björn JanssonSwedish: sverigesradio.se »
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10 / 10
Translated from swedish: A display of storytelling
- Michael TapperSwedish: sydsvenskan.se »
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8.8 / 10
Translated from swedish: It creates an image of a life, glides through the mysterious gaps, puts a finger on the vulnerability that the characters suffer from, but captures their humanity. It is a quiet feel-good, as intelligently made as romantically perceived.
- Fredrik FyhrSwedish: fredrikfyhr.se »
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8.3 / 10
Translated from swedish: "Moonlight" is a unique three-act play about tenderness and love between black men on the shadowy side of American society.
- Karoline ErikssonSwedish: svd.se »
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8 / 10
Translated from swedish: As a whole, "Moonlight" is still original and engaging, and for the Black Film in the US, its success is somewhat of a milestone.
- Jan-Olov AnderssonSwedish: aftonbladet.se »
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8 / 10
Translated from swedish: The film is not analytical, despite the complex subjects it addresses, and that feels good. On the other hand, the storytelling is sometimes simplified to the point of being "the story of the little boy in a tough reality".
- Jan-Eje FerlingSwedish: filmeye.se »
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8 / 10
Translated from swedish: "Moonlight" is primarily a universal depiction of the step from child to adult, of having the odds against you, of not having too many alternatives for life choices.
- Mats JohnsonSwedish: gp.se »
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8 / 10
Translated from swedish: There are some special sequences that remain with me. These moments, which sometimes only last a brief moment, are deeply moving.
- Sebastian HåkanssonSwedish: filmtopp.se »
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8 / 10
Translated from swedish: There is no moral to the story that tells how important it is to dare to be who you are. Life happens, and it's easy to reflect in retrospect on how brutally involuntary everything can feel.
- Jonathan SchiessSwedish: ergo.nu »
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8 / 10
Translated from swedish: This thought-provoking film handles difficult questions without simple answers with care. Of course, the fact that it is set against the backdrop of the most macho of macho environments gives the story an extra dimension.
- Mats Gustafsson HedenströmSwedish: ka.se »
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8 / 10
Translated from swedish: The "Moonlight" best way is perhaps to depict the taboo of vulnerability.
- Kristoffer ViitaSwedish: svt.se »
Box Office
Moonlight has earned a total of 65 172 611 dollars from cinemas across the world (the global box office).
Other films by Barry Jenkins
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⏱️ 119 min
7.1
8.7
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⏱️ 120 min
6.7 5.9
1. CineVue
Bold in ambition and delicate in execution, it will break your heart and then piece it back together.
- Ben Nicholson
CineVue »