Critic Reviews

• Bosley Crowther, New York Times

  Never have I got such a message of the cruelty of the sport as is conveyed in this film, which owes much of its excitement to superb color photography.

• Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

  Francesco Rosi's 1965 feature is widely (and plausibly) considered the best movie about bullfighting, in part because of its irony and finesse in capturing how the sport springs from and plays against the social reality of Spain.

• Geoff Andrew, Time Out

  It's a colourful, cruel world of senseless exploitation (of animals and humans alike) and tyrannical traditions, rendered with vivid brilliance by this uncommonly unsentimental director.

• Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

  Arguably the greatest bullfighting movie ever made.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  The best film on bullfighting.

• Christopher Long, Movie Metropolis

  There's one thing I can say about every bullfighting movie I've seen: I'm always rooting for the bull.

• James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk

  ends up feeling distracted, constantly torn away from developing an interesting protagonist in favor of lingering on the behind-the-scenes machinations of the business of bullfighting and bullfighting itself

• , TV Guide's Movie Guide

  The Moment of Truth tells the story of a farm boy, Mateo, who heads for the bullrings of Barcelona and quickly becomes a top-rated toreador and press darling. His downfall is just as abrupt, however.

• Peter Canavese, Groucho Reviews

  This fable of the disposable performer rising above his class transcends ordinary fiction to be an expressive visual record of the art of bullfighting: primal, brutal, repellent and magnetic in equal measure. [Blu-ray]

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