Popular reviews

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  Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★★★ 18

  There aren't enough stars in the rating system to do justice to how brilliant this film is. A disturbing true life tale, it grabs a hold of you and simply does not let go, remaining in your memory for long after.

  Richard Attenborough gives one of the performances of his career, if not the performance of his career as the eerie, creepy landlord and serial killer John Christie. One small criticism is that the normally reliable John Hurt, starring as the simple minded, illiterate braggart Timothy Evans, has a somewhat iffy grasp of the Welsh accent at times, but that's a minor complaint to be having from an otherwise excellent performance in an excellent film.

  One of the best serial killer biopics, one of the best British films of the 70s, and one of the best British films full stop.

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  Review by Michael501 📺 ★★★★★ 1

  1971 In Review - January
  #10

  A seemingly model citizen living in mid-century London, John Christie (Richard Attenborough) is actually a killer. Masquerading as a doctor, he convinces guileless women that he can cure whatever might ail them, and when they follow him to his home, he chokes them to death and buries them in a makeshift graveyard. Based on a series of real-life killings, the story follows John as he cons a pregnant bride (Judy Geeson) and wonders if he might have found a scapegoat in her husband (John Hurt).

  This was the film that made me realise that real horror, real monsters existed in the world. Up to watching this I had largely binged myself on the classic…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 2

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  What impresses me about this is how it makes its argument, without belaboring it, for the idea that Tim Evans is one of Christie's victims, and how it shows without belaboring the point where sexism enables Christie's predation. The former is fairly clear: manipulating Evans is simple enough, and the confusing web of compulsive lies only serves to entangle him deeper in the web. A use of relative privilege (simply being better educated, even if marginally) destroys Tim Evans, and Christie's actions are at the core of it.

  The latter is easily spotted in the build up to the abortion. The illegal nature of abortion removes basic safety nets and options from Beryl's life, narrowing her choices down to several…

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  Review by Matt Winfield ★★★★ 6

  Richard Attenborough... goddamn, what a truly haunting performance. Taking on such a quiet and reserved character, so subtle yet creepy, while hiding a real horrific beast behind beady eyes. A role that makes me automatically think of Michael Rooker in Henry, so effective in showing off the day-to-day mundaneness of a serial killer. The normalization, disgusting in its drudgery. A character that leaves you so uncomfortable despite the safety and security of being locked inside a TV screen. Another sickening reminder that these people exist, these people blend in, and NOTHING is more terrifying than that.

  I wasn't familiar with the John Christie killings going in, and I'm kinda glad I wasn't because it made John Hurt's story all the…

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  Review by Steve G 🇵🇸 🇾🇪 ★★★★½

  I'm quite sure that every time I review a film directed by Richard Fleischer, even the odd one by him that wasn't very good, I spend most of my review talking about how under-appreciated he was and asking why this is.

  I won't do that this time, I promise, but you're only off the hook because it's late and I may well fall asleep halfway through this review. "Like all of your reader does, Steve!" Oh ho!

  10 Rillington Place sees Fleischer adopt a few things from The Boston Strangler in terms of the biography of a serial killer, which is an understandable thing to do as that was a fine film to say the very least. A quiet approach…

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  Review by DallasFrance ★★★★

  A chronology of my reactions to characters I’ve seen Richard Attenborough play through the years:

  1. Jurassic Park: A cute, fuzzy old man who loves cuddly dinosaurs! (not a megalomaniac drunk on playing God, unleashing a cataclysmic danger under the guise of a fun and games amusement park).

  2. Brighton Rock: a baby-faced badass gangster, with ice in his veins and an acidic accent on his tongue.

  3 10 Rillington Place: the creepiest old man in the history of film, manipulating the weak and killing the vulnerable. And the hair! OMG the hair. And his relationship with his wife! GAAAHHH! And the weaselly way he endears himself to strangers! NOOOOO!

  Bite my head off, T Rex! PLEASE!

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  Review by Bruno Andrade ★★★★½ 2

  O Lourcelles, numa daquelas fórmulas lapidares que apenas ele aparentemente é capaz de emitir e cujo segredo só ele detém, escreveu o seguinte sobre 10 Rillington Place no Dictionnaire du cinéma: "O filme não deseja conter nenhuma lição: essa é a sua força e o seu estranho poder (e consequentemente todo comentário sobre ele só pode deixá-lo intacto para o futuro espectador)."

  Eu acrescentaria outra "consequência" que dá ao filme a sua dimensão particularmente fascinante: essa ausência de lição para a qual Lourcelles chama a atenção é o que provavelmente faz com que se trate do único filme (certamente o único a que assisti) que provoca mais medo em visões subsequentes que na primeira vez em que é assistido.

  Em…

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  Review by Colin the dude ★★★★★

  One of the great acting clinics and unsung masterpieces of the 70s. Attenborough. Hurt. Genius.

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  Review by Wilson ★★★★

  10 Rillington Place is probably the clearest example of a masterpiece that I would never want to watch again. It is fiercely oppressive, mostly set in the flats of the 10 Rillington Place of the title. A squalid, grim little block, with families living on top of each other, all crying babies and migraines.

  On the ground floor lives Richard Attenborough as the malevolent John 'Reg' Christie, who murders women, by gassing them, in a gruesomely intimate way, holding a gas mask over their faces, before strangulation and sex with the corpse. All of this is seen in the opening scene, a prologue set during war-time, 1944; before the film switches to 1949, with the arrival of John Hurt and…

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  Review by FilmApe ★★★★ 5

  Richard Attenborough is certainly "sparing no expense" in his portrayal of serial killer John Christie, and his performance is a chilling one. John Hurt playing the patsy in this is also an extremely impressive performance, and as the film plays out, he basically just becomes a fly caught in a spider's web. My only complaint with the film is that the last thirty minutes feels obligatory, given that this is a true story, and is a bit of a slog to get through, particularly after the masterful tension that the first hour of the film provides. Thanks for the prescription @Colin the dude.

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  Review by bbbgtoby ★★★½ 2

  Discovering Richard Attenborough's career, essentially in reverse, is a constant stream of fascinating films and incredible performances, 10 Rillington Place is no exception. Based on true events and filmed in the same locations(!) as some of the actual murders took place, Attenborough is brilliant as a sociopath in what turned out to be one of his last major roles before Spielberg brought him out of retirement. A young John Hurt nails his Welsh accent and is more than a match for the powerful performance of Attenborough.

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  Review by Erin 🍺 ★★★★

  This shit is BLEAK 

  John Hurt is so precious in this I feel so bad for him