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Possession

Play trailer Poster for Possession R 1981 2h 4m Horror Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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85% Tomatometer 40 Reviews 77% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
After Anna (Isabelle Adjani) reveals to her husband, Mark (Sam Neill), that she is having an affair, she leaves him and their son. Mark is devastated, and seeks out Heinrich (Heinz Bennent), the man who cuckolded him, only to receive a beating. After a series of violent confrontations between Mark and Anna, Mark hires a private investigator to follow her. Anna descends into madness, and it's soon clear that she is hiding a much bigger secret -- one that is both inexplicable and shocking.
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Possession

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Critics Consensus

Blending genres as effectively as it subverts expectations, Possession uses powerful acting and disquieting imagery to grapple with complex themes.

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Critics Reviews

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Rachel Syme The New Yorker The film contains one of the great gross-out scenes of all time... Oct 21, 2024 Full Review Peter Sobczynski RogerEbert.com [Possession] remains one of the most grueling, powerful, and overwhelmingly intense cinematic experiences that you are likely to have in your lifetime. Rated: 4/4 Oct 1, 2021 Full Review Ben Sachs Chicago Reader Adjani won the best actress prize at Cannes for her dual performance (as an unfaithful wife and her angelic doppelganger), but the whole cast is astonishing, exorcising painful feelings with an intensity that rivals that of the filmmaking. Jan 23, 2014 Full Review Sean Axmaker Stream on Demand Think 'Rosemary’s Baby' reimagined as David Cronenberg bio-horror colliding with European psycho-drama. Apr 26, 2025 Full Review Bianca Garner Filmotomy The film is essentially about the war between the sexes and the destructive nature of love. Oct 11, 2024 Full Review Ray Pride Newcity Zulawski’s beloved berserker of marital mayhem... is the vicious m-----. Bergman’s <i>Scenes From A Marriage”</i>? Only vamping... See it with someone you’re not sure about. Rated: 10/10 Jul 2, 2024 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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no wasn’t even the same movie lmfaooo Rated 1 out of 5 stars 10/06/24 Full Review unknown Movies wasn’t even that good, it was boring and most of the time just them fighting and getting naked Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/03/22 Full Review Anthony F Beyond pretentious. Pathetic ripoff of Polanski’s “Repulsion” Absolute garbage, like being trapped in dab acting class for 2 hrs plus. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 07/02/25 Full Review Kyle C I get why people like this movie. It has social and political allegories, and the director clearly poured a lot of his own experience into it. These are aspects I really did appreciate. The first 30 minutes show an incredibly powerful unraveling of a long-term relationship. The setting — just off the Berlin Wall — is a fascinating backdrop for things falling apart and colliding. But that’s about where my appreciation ends. The problem is that none of these ideas come together into anything cohesive. It’s spaghetti at the wall with no focus. This is the kind of movie your weird friend in film school makes for a senior project. After the sixth or seventh scene of a character shrieking at the camera for minutes on end, you’ll start exchanging awkward glances with the rest of the audience, wondering why you’re still watching. Despite some striking ideas and shocking imagery, it lacks the scares to be effective horror and the character depth to work as drama. It just needs more coherence. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 06/29/25 Full Review Unpretentious N This movie seems to only be liked by art film students and certain critics. I don't understand its acclaim. The film was strange, hard to understand, had not-so-great special effects, and the sequence with Adjani screaming in the tunnel was endless and tiresome at best. The acting in most of it was decent, and if you dig deeper into the themes it will make more sense, but if you go into it as I did just looking at Barbara Baranowska's superior French film poster with a Medusa-like figure on the cover that piques your interest, you will be disappointed because you expect so much more than it gives. I will say that there is a missing plot point during the tunnel screaming sequence that makes it much more understandable, but without it, the sequence makes no sense. I've seen worse movies, so I'm giving this a 1 and 1/2. Stay away if you want entertainment; if you want to be pretentious and/or are in film school, watch and give it the praise its Emperor's New Clothes doesn't deserve. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 06/10/25 Full Review Will M Probably groundbreaking for it's time, but even in it's most famous scene, the SFX were much terrifying than what we have now. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 05/31/25 Full Review Read all reviews
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Movie Info

Synopsis After Anna (Isabelle Adjani) reveals to her husband, Mark (Sam Neill), that she is having an affair, she leaves him and their son. Mark is devastated, and seeks out Heinrich (Heinz Bennent), the man who cuckolded him, only to receive a beating. After a series of violent confrontations between Mark and Anna, Mark hires a private investigator to follow her. Anna descends into madness, and it's soon clear that she is hiding a much bigger secret -- one that is both inexplicable and shocking.
Director
Andrzej Żuławski
Producer
Marie-Laure Reyre
Screenwriter
Frederic Tuten, Andrzej Żuławski
Production Co
Gaumont, Marianne Productions, Oliane Productions
Rating
R
Genre
Horror, Drama
Original Language
English
Runtime
2h 4m
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