Possession

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Possession

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2h 4m

Horror

Drama

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85%

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39 Reviews

78%

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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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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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Rachel Syme

The New Yorker

The film contains one of the great gross-out scenes of all time...

Oct 21, 2024

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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

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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

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Bianca Garner

Filmotomy

The film is essentially about the war between the sexes and the destructive nature of love.

Oct 11, 2024

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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

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Brian Bisesi

Horror Movie Club Podcast

While Possession is certainly one of a kind, its imaginative plot is over-shadowed by stilted dialogue and overly theatrical performances.

Rated: 2/5

Mar 13, 2024

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no

wasn’t even the same movie lmfaooo

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

10/06/24

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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

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Audience Member

This film has terrible production quality, the filming is bad, the special effects are bad, who ever did the sound really phoned it in, probably from mars. I felt the acting was absurd. It was also very visually dull. I watched the English dubbed version and it was a joke. The timing of the dubbing was way off. The voice actors that did the English dubbing all had ridicules weird voices. The dialogue was filled with mistakes and was largely unintelligible. I disliked the movie but read all the favorable reviews so I figured I would try it again this time with subtitles to try and get around the terrible dubbing. The subtitles were worse than the dubbing. It was almost like they used google translator and converted it through every language on the planet compounding the mistakes exponentially. It seemed like it didn’t know which genre it wanted to be, monster movie, drama, thriller with no thrills, or a shoot’em up. It failed on all accounts. The characters were unlikeable and behaved in extremely bizarre over the top ways. People just don’t interact with other people the way they do in this film making it awkward and uninteresting to watch. Very boring. I have disliked other films before but I have never been truly annoyed at one the way I have with this. A film that irritates both the eyes and ears. This film gets both rave and terrible reviews leading me to believe there might be two films with the same name and people are reviewing totally separate films.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/18/25

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Teddy B

An exercise in excruciating pain with origins both in reality and fantasy, 'Possession' is a tale bound to provoke through its multitude of layers of surrealism. Depravity has never been more visceral than this, almost brought to an animal state of being.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/02/25

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Jules N

Il y a un délire mais je l'ai pas capté

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

11/23/24

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Thomas W

Absolute laughable mess.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

11/03/24

Full Review

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Andrzej Żuławski

Director

Isabelle Adjani

Anna

Sam Neill

Mark

Margit Carstensen

Margit Gluckmeister

Heinz Bennent

Heinrich

Johanna Hofer

Heinrich's mother

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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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