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Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

tomatometer

100

Average Rating: 9.7/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 0

No consensus yet.

audience

83

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 9,094

My Rating

Movie Info

Peter Weir's haunting and evocative mystery is set in the Australia of 1900, a mystical place where the British have attempted to impose their Christian culture with such tweedy refinements as a girls' boarding school. After gauzily-photographed, nicely underplayed scenes of the girls' budding sexuality being restrained in Victorian corsets, the uptight headmistress (Rachel Roberts) takes them on a Valentine's Day picnic into the countryside, and several of the girls, led by the lovely Miranda

Oct 20, 1998

South Australian Film

Cast

All Critics (29) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (27) | Rotten (2) | DVD (7)

Spottily effective.

August 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This horrific tale is told with marvelous shadowy indirection and delicate lyricism.

August 30, 2010 Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | Comment
TIME Magazine
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The story provides Mr. Weir with material for a kind of Australian horror-romance that recalls Nathaniel Hawthorne's preoccupation with the spiritual and moral heritage of his own New England landscape.

January 15, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
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A film of haunting mystery and buried sexual hysteria.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
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One of the most hauntingly beautiful mysteries ever created on film.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
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A poetic and enigmatic drama that's a classic of Australian cinema.

August 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

By turns fascinating and mysterious.

August 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

It's all pretty overheated and underexplained but this arty, vague, and possibly supernatural movie lingers on in the memory.

August 30, 2010 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Etched into the Australian consciousness and an iconic film that helps buttress Australian cinema in its claim to international standing

July 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile

The result is little more than a discreetly artistic horror film.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Sem conseguir criar muito clima de suspense ou mistério, Weir depende da recriaçăo das buscas e de uma subtrama envolvendo uma aluna pobre. Ritmo lento, roteiro fraco.

July 25, 2003 Comments (6)
Cinema em Cena

Visually appealing.

April 21, 2003 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

[An] unsettling, atmospheric film.

March 10, 2003 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | Comment
Austin Chronicle

A masterpiece of eerie atmosphere

November 8, 2002 Comment
Lawrence Journal-World

The film works at various levels and certainly sparks discussion, as people attempt to figure out what they've just seen.

August 30, 2002 Full Review Source: Old School Reviews | Comment
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Picnic at Hanging Rock

Miranda: Everything begins and ends at the exact right time and place. "A recollection of evil."Picnic at Hanging Rock is like nothing you would expect. It has a horror film plot, but it never turns into a horror film. It's haunting, sure, but never terrifying, and I am perfectly fine with that. What the movie is, is a

December 11, 2011
blkbomb
Melvin White

Super Reviewer

Hitchcock once said "The terror isn't in the bang but in the anticipation of it". That rang true as far as I'm concerned with Picnic at Hanging Rock. There may not have been a bang but that's kind of the point. The intrigue and suspense in this film is never really uncomfortable, it's often quite alluring but as

September 26, 2011
SirPant

Super Reviewer

    1. Miranda: What we see and what we seem are but a dream - a dream within a dream.
    – Submitted by Chad E (3 months ago)
    1. Constable Jones: There's some questions got answers and some haven't.
    – Submitted by Chad E (3 months ago)
    1. Miranda: Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.
    – Submitted by Chad E (3 months ago)

Latest News for Picnic at Hanging Rock

December 2, 2005:
Depp, Weir & Roth to Visit "Shantaram"
Variety brings news of a cinematic pairing that should thrill most of the hardcore movie geeks out...

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Foreign Titles

  • Picnic (DE)
  • Picnic (UK)
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