Babylon
Stream
Rent & Buy
A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
What critics thought
Damien Chazelle's sprawling ode to early Hollywood split critics almost cleanly down the middle: admirers found its excess thrilling and its performances (particularly Robbie and Pitt) genuinely transporting, while detractors argued the three-hour runtime disguises a screenplay with nothing coherent to say beneath the spectacle. The central fault line was whether the film's maximalism felt like a bold artistic statement or a substitute for one.
“Babylon is what movie love really looks like.”
Mick LaSalle·San Francisco Chronicle
“it's hard to imagine the overstuffed yet insubstantial Babylon finding its way into many screen-classic montages”
David Rooney·The Hollywood Reporter
“These are little islands in a sea of mannered chaos, but it begins to feel, as Babylon stretches out across three hours and eight minutes, that Chazelle has no clear idea where all of this is going.”
Richard Lawson·Vanity Fair
“Babylon is a manic sprawl that only pretends to celebrate cinema. It's really about prurience, dumb sensation, self-congratulation and willful ignorance of history.”
Stephanie Zacharek·Time
“Babylon presents itself as the apotheosis of all that has come before, the ne plus ultra of the medium's own potential, and indeed, it's an experience that won't be easily topped, in this or any year. But that doesn't make it great or even particularly coherent”
Peter Debruge·Variety
Accolades
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Cast & Crew
Damien ChazelleDirector
Diego CalvaManny Torres
Margot RobbieNellie LaRoy
Brad PittJack Conrad
Jovan AdepoSidney Palmer
Jean SmartElinor St. John
J.C. CurraisTruck Driver
Jimmy OrtegaElephant Wrangler
Marcos A. FerraezPolice Officer
Shane PowersDale
Phoebe TonkinJane Thornton
Troy MetcalfOrville Pickwick
Hansford PrinceJoe Holiday
Justin HurwitzComposer
Linus SandgrenCinematographyBabylon
A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
What critics thought
Damien Chazelle's sprawling ode to early Hollywood split critics almost cleanly down the middle: admirers found its excess thrilling and its performances (particularly Robbie and Pitt) genuinely transporting, while detractors argued the three-hour runtime disguises a screenplay with nothing coherent to say beneath the spectacle. The central fault line was whether the film's maximalism felt like a bold artistic statement or a substitute for one.
“Babylon is what movie love really looks like.”
Mick LaSalle·San Francisco Chronicle
“it's hard to imagine the overstuffed yet insubstantial Babylon finding its way into many screen-classic montages”
David Rooney·The Hollywood Reporter
“These are little islands in a sea of mannered chaos, but it begins to feel, as Babylon stretches out across three hours and eight minutes, that Chazelle has no clear idea where all of this is going.”
Richard Lawson·Vanity Fair
“Babylon is a manic sprawl that only pretends to celebrate cinema. It's really about prurience, dumb sensation, self-congratulation and willful ignorance of history.”
Stephanie Zacharek·Time
“Babylon presents itself as the apotheosis of all that has come before, the ne plus ultra of the medium's own potential, and indeed, it's an experience that won't be easily topped, in this or any year. But that doesn't make it great or even particularly coherent”
Peter Debruge·Variety
Accolades
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Cast & Crew
Damien ChazelleDirectorDiego CalvaManny TorresMargot RobbieNellie LaRoyBrad PittJack ConradJovan AdepoSidney PalmerJean SmartElinor St. JohnJ.C. CurraisTruck DriverJimmy OrtegaElephant WranglerMarcos A. FerraezPolice OfficerShane PowersDalePhoebe TonkinJane ThorntonTroy MetcalfOrville PickwickHansford PrinceJoe HolidayJustin HurwitzComposerLinus SandgrenCinematographyStream
Rent & Buy