The Phantom of Liberty

R

Released Sep 11, 1974

1h 44m

Comedy

List

85%

Tomatometer

26 Reviews

91%

Audience Score

5,000+ Ratings

This Surrealist Spanish film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.

Read More

Read Less

Pauline Kael

New Yorker

The domesticated surrealism of this picture has no sting, no bite, and no aftereffect. At most, it's amusing, at worst, it's tedious.

Sep 21, 2023

Full Review

Joy Gould Boyum

Wall Street Journal

Superb and marvelously witty.

Aug 10, 2022

Full Review

Tom Milne

Time Out

[Luis Buñuel] made sure that this isn't such an easy pill to digest, though its delightful humor goes down just as easily.

May 24, 2019

Full Review

Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

Episodic assemblies of absurdist jokes...

Jul 18, 2023

Full Review

John Simon

Esquire Magazine

Much that has been hailed as Buñuel's profundity is merely self-purgation: catharsis for himself rather than for his audience. Though this may be the commonest motive for artistic creation, it is, by itself, insufficient.

Jul 28, 2020

Full Review

LAFP Staff

Los Angeles Free Press

The result is funny, frustrating and thought-provoking.

Dec 5, 2019

Full Review

Read all reviews

Alec B

Buñuel at his most playful and hilarious. It jumps from one absurd scenario to another without bringing any of those pieces to a satisfying conclusion but the film never feels inconsistent or jarring.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

11/10/23

Full Review

Dave S

Luis Bunuel, the master of cinematic surrealism, takes things to a new level of oddness in The Phantom of Liberty. Consisting of a series of short vignettes tied together with the most slender of threads, we encounter poker playing monks, a fox hunt that involves the military, a meandering emu, toilets used as dinner chairs, an elderly virgin pursued by her amorous nephew, a mass murderer who becomes a highly celebrated celebrity, and a young girl who is declared missing, despite being in the presence of her parents. And there's more!! Bunuel takes aim at all of the targets he has traditionally attacked over the course of his career, but that doesn't make The Phantom of Liberty any less impactful. It is an ingenious and wonderfully inventive bit of weirdness that never fails to entertain. ‘Long live chains!!' Indeed.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

05/05/23

Full Review

William L

"Those bastards who mistreat animals should be drowned." Mr. Buñuel, have you seen ANY of your other movies? A surrealist comedy of manners that sees Buñuel move away from explicitly criticizing the habits of the Church and the upper classes to more universal territory, taking aim at common social mores and assumptions about conduct that most take for granted. It's a film that you have to keep an eye on, as the script creates plausible scenarios and characters to lull you into a sense of security before dropping an absurdist twist without warning, with each actor playing their respective roles straight as if they're Leslie Nielsen in Airplane!; the particular style is not unique to the director (Jacques Tati comes to mind, in some respects), but there are plenty of Buñuel's unique artistic traits, particularly the focus on creating dialogue that sounds respectable and formal in short bursts but which immediately becomes satirical viewed from a step or two back. In some ways it's a film that feels completely ahead of its time, with a focus on shallow government and social institutions and characters that exist in a post-truth world, sincerely going about their days without complaint or self-awareness. Perhaps not as famous as some of the director's other films, but still plenty sharp. (3.5/5)

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

07/27/22

Full Review

david f

This film was a disparate collection of surrealist anecdotes. A topless piano player and a dinner table with toilet seats for chairs are a couple of the jarringly inventive visuals but I think that most of these scenes are too personal to the director, Luis Buñuel, and not given enough connective tissue to gel for the average viewer.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

some very funny, absurd typical Bunuel moments and some less successful, makes this film a mixed bag. I saw it a couple of days after La Charme Discret De La Bourgeoisie and I didn't enjoyed it as much.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

Full Review

chris w

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 = 82

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Luis Buñuel

Director

Jean-Claude Brialy

Foucauld

Monica Vitti

Mme Foucaud

Milena Vukotic

L'infirmière

Claude Piéplu

Le commissaire de police

Michel Piccoli

Le second préfet de police

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

88%

69%

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)

92%

93%

Richard Pryor: Live in Concert

96%

93%

Life of Brian

TRAILER

for Life of Brian

79%

76%

Avanti!

47%

82%

Up in Smoke

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

View more photos

Synopsis

This Surrealist Spanish film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.

Director: Luis Buñuel
Screenwriter: Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière
Distributor: 20th Century Fox, Rialto Pictures
Production Co: 20th Century Fox
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 11, 1974, Original
Release Date (DVD): May 24, 2005
Runtime: 1h 44m
Sound Mix: Mono
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1, 35mm