--- title: "Picnic at Hanging Rock: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/picnic-at-hanging-rock/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/picnic-at-hanging-rock" critics_score: 82 critics_reviews: 9 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975): what the critics said Critics' score 82 from 9 reviews: 9 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative. The reviews are unanimously positive, with praise clustering around Peter Weir’s command of atmosphere and the unsettling Australian landscape. Most critics value the film’s suggestiveness, finding dread and repressed desire in its schoolgirl mystery rather than treating it as a puzzle to be solved. Empire singles out Russell Boyd’s cinematography, while the broader consensus admires the way the sunlit setting becomes strange and threatening. Sexual repression and Victorian propriety are recurring points of interest. The differences are chiefly in enthusiasm and interpretation, rather than explicit objections. Scores range from 70 to 90, but even the more measured assessments praise the poetic mood and nature’s disturbing presence. The Guardian stresses imperial anxiety and sexual hysteria; Eye for Film finds adolescent tensions especially rewarding, while acknowledging the mystery’s frustrating quality. There is no clear dissenting review, nor a shared complaint about performance, pacing or construction. ## The AV Club — Keith Phipps Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 29 March 2002. The film is a beautifully shot, haunted, and haunting movie and a classic example of the power of suggestiveness, elusiveness, and understatement. It helped initiate the first wave of interest in Australian moviemaking and is a peerless mystery in the truest sense of the word. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/picnic-at-hanging-rock-1798196203) ## The Guardian Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 20 February 2025. Peter Weir’s 1975 film is a classic of the Australian new wave cinema, a supernatural parable of imperial anxiety and sexual hysteria that remains dazzling on its 50th anniversary re-release. The critic singles out its sun-stricken hallucinatory strangeness and the way it affects the manner of a true-crime cold case around an unknowable enigma at the rock. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/20/picnic-at-hanging-rock-review-peter-weir) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Rating 3.5/4. 14 January 1980. Weir's film creates a haunting mystery around the unexplained disappearance of schoolgirls and a teacher on a picnic, evoking buried terror and repressed sexuality in a lush Australian landscape. Ebert praises its deliberate inconclusiveness and hypnotic, enigmatic quality over any tidy resolution. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/picnic-at-hanging-rock-1980) ## Empire — Ian Nathan Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. The critic calls it a haunting and compelling oddity from Peter Weir, part mystery, part horror, and an impressionist poem to lost innocence. The sumptuous and captivating cinematography by Russell Boyd is singled out for praise, along with the film's emphasis on nature's alien quality and its refusal to provide straightforward answers. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/picnic-hanging-rock-review/) ## Los Angeles Times — Kevin Thomas Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 25 June 1998. Weir's director's cut revival is exquisite and seductive, showcasing masterful mood and suggestiveness with the rock as a brooding presence and the story's erotic symbolism. Thomas calls it a gorgeous-looking, superbly wrought enigma that helped revive Australian cinema. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-25-ca-63262-story.html) ## The New York Times — J. Hoberman Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 29 January 2025. The restored 1975 film is a national treasure epitomizing the 'outback uncanny,' with its tale of girls and a teacher vanishing from a prehistoric rock formation amid Victorian propriety. Hoberman highlights its quasi-supernatural atmosphere and status as Australia's greatest movie. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/movies/picnic-at-hanging-rock-restoration.html) ## Sight and Sound — James Bell Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). The film became a breakthrough for Australian cinema with its poetic mood and sumptuous cinematography. It revolves around the unexplained disappearance of schoolgirls at the rock, evoking ancestral ghosts and the tension between Victorian attitudes and the rugged landscape. [Read the review](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/5596) ## Slant Magazine — Chris Cabin Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 30 June 2014. Desire as persistent and intense as the sunshine on a bright summer day teases out madness in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. The power of nature is quiet but all-consuming in this unclassifiable work, which Criterion gives an astonishing A/V transfer. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/picnic-at-hanging-rock/) ## Eye for Film — Jennie Kermode Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 18 March 2009. The critic praises Weir's graceful adaptation for capturing the book's mysterious and frustrating spirit along with its magical atmosphere rooted in aboriginal Dreamtime traditions. They single out the exploration of adolescent tensions, sensuality, and repression at the all-girls school as a key strength. [Read the review](https://eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/picnic-at-hanging-rock-film-review-by-jennie-kermode) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/picnic-at-hanging-rock.md