‎Lady Macbeth (2016) directed by William Oldroyd • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Lady Macbeth

2016 Directed by William Oldroyd

The passionate affair of a young woman trapped in a marriage of convenience unleashes a maelstrom of murder and mayhem on a country estate.

Florence Pugh Cosmo Jarvis Paul Hilton Naomi Ackie Christopher Fairbank Bill Fellows Ian Conningham Golda Rosheuvel Anton Palmer Rebecca Manley

Country

Language

English

drama

89 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 8

the milk of human kindness has most definitely gone sour.

can't remember the last time i saw anything that offered such a nuanced, slippery portrait of moral decline [insert joke about the GOP here].

highly recommended for fans of ladies, macbeth, the handmaiden, and / or murder on the moors.
Review by kevinyang ★★★½ 3

I'm making a list called "performances that are better than most of the 2018 Oscar nominations" and Florence Pugh is already on it.
Review by Wesley R. Ball ★★★½ 8

My mom: I wonder why they don't want her going outside at all?
*cuts to the 4th sex scene in ten minutes*
Mom: Maybe that's why.
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★½

42/100

Even skeptics tend to praise Florence Pugh's performance in the title role, but I submit that her talent obscures some fundamentally poor choices (for which director William Oldroyd shares the blame, of course). An appalling metamorphosis is what's called for, but Pugh works overtime to signal what's coming, right from the outset; she seems disturbed even before the patriarchal nightmare has a chance to warp her. (I suppose one could argue that significant warping occurred throughout the character's childhood, but that's not exactly dramatically satisfying.) Consequently, there's no sense of tragedy or loss here—just a monster whose increasingly horrific crimes are shallowly contextualized by her own mistreatment. Doesn't help that the grand passion that ostensibly motivates Katherine plays like…
Review by Josh Rosenthal ★★★★ 2

hell hath no fury like a woman bored.
Review by Diego Tutweiller ★★★★ 17

Just how dangerous is an overly attached girlfriend? If Lady Macbeth is to be believed, the answer is “very.” This gleefully mean-spirited film is among my favorite movies of the year, not in spite of how unlikable all the characters are, but rather because of it. Nearly all of the people in this film are unwaveringly repugnant, and there’s something refreshing about how willingly the movie wears that trait on its sleeve. Part of the fun in moviegoing is spending time with interesting characters, and in that respect Lady Macbeth succeeds handily. It’s a bleak, moving portrait of the ugliest side of humanity.

Lady Macbeth tells the story of Katherine, a young woman trapped in a horribly mismatched arranged marriage…

Recent reviews

Review by bottle_rocket ★★★

88.
Review by Tamara Moliver ½

Acting school is a great idea, perhaps it should be a requirement before casting..
Review by eleanor ★★½

anna should have been the protagonist
Review by Andy Patterson ★★

A needlessly, thoroughly unpleasant and nasty film. There's a drawn out scene involving the main characters smothering a small child to death while he kicks and flails and screams. Okay? That sure is entertaining isn't it? It is done for literally no other reason than to point out how morally bankrupt the protagonist has become.

It is a shame that a film which initially showed promise, with Florence Pugh's performance and excellent period setting detail, devolved into an out and out exercise in shock value nastiness in service of a laborious and uninteresting plot.
Review by Anirudh Medisetty ★★★½

LADY MACBETH is a grim, dark and a cold-blooded British period drama. It would've been terrific if it had been made from the maid's perspective. Florence Pugh is impressive with her character transformation. The lock framing cinematography and the non-musical score combinedly grip you immensely.
Review by allinthegameyo ★★★★

Florence Pugh was masterful, and Christopher Fairbank was incredibly devious. Effective low-budget filmmaking at its finest.
Review by Mark

Cold hearted bitch. Me like.

Pugh carries the load in this film and is one of the years standout stars!
Review by DavidM3000AD ★★★★

Florence Pugh, the standout from the disappointing The Falling, is captivating as the corseted yet increasingly insouciant steely sociopath, Katherine, who icily turns against the suppressive patriarchal figures and the numbing life in which she's become trapped.
Katherine's stoic rebelliousness eventually comes to match the chilly emptiness of Northumbrian landscape that hems her in, and she turns from feminist anti-hero to full-blown villainess by the closing credits, but it's a strong, bravely realised character and what should be a star-making role for Pugh.
Review by Luis Enrique Rayas ★★★½

Supongo no estoy tan encantado con el desarrollo de su trama y las velocidades con las que se mueve en momentos. Pareciera preferir la elipsis al desarrollo del personaje y termina cerrando puntos con un simple porque sí. Pero, bueno, Florence Pugh va más allá de lo que eso le permite y termina llenando a su personaje de gestos con los que se genera una simpatía mórbida. Get it, gurl.

También el gato, gran actuación del gato.