---
title: "Roma"
year: 2018
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/roma"
fi1m_id: "roma"
imdb_id: "tt6155172"
tmdb_id: 426426
wikidata_id: "Q27959455"
fi1m_score: 86
critics_score: 85
critics_reviews: 22
published: "2026-09-16"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:38:35.771538+00:00"
region: "US"
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."
---

# Roma (2018)

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón · 2h 15m · MPA R · Drama

## Identity

Roma

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/roma
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** roma
- **IMDb ID:** tt6155172
- **TMDB ID:** 426426
- **Wikidata ID:** Q27959455
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6155172/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/426426, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q27959455

**Fi1m score: 86** · Critics 85 from 22 reviews

*In a sentence:* A household has time for a family drama because somebody else is doing the housework

> Alfonso Cuarón’s patient domestic drama is worth the time it asks for, chiefly for Yalitza Aparicio. Its careful compositions sometimes keep us at a distance, but the housekeeper at its centre never disappears into the scenery.

## Synopsis

In 1970s Mexico City, housekeeper Cleo Gutiérrez (Yalitza Aparicio) spends her days looking after a family whose familiar routines are beginning to break down. Around her are Sofía (Marina de Tavira) and Adela (Nancy García García), as troubles among the adults spread through the household. Cleo tries to keep daily life running while making space for needs of her own. The children still need care and the house still needs work, but affection between the family and its domestic workers does not remove the differences of class, or spare Cleo from the upheaval taking shape around her.

## Review

*Roma* is a moving drama about domestic work and the people who can take it for granted, though its careful pace asks for patience. Alfonso Cuarón writes and directs a story drawn from childhood memory, set in 1970s Mexico City and centred on the housekeeper Cleo Gutiérrez. That choice gives the familiar family drama someone different to follow: the woman employed to keep daily life running when the family is struggling. The film spends enough time on her routines to make their demands felt.

Yalitza Aparicio makes Cleo’s quietness absorbing without turning every look into a request for sympathy. We were moved by the long takes of Cleo’s household work, because they made us sit with time that other people in the house take for granted. The performance gives those stretches enough feeling to hold our attention without a confrontation or a speech. We remain aware that Cleo is at work while other people are at home, even when the affection between them is plain.

As cinematographer, Alfonso Cuarón uses wide black-and-white frames and long takes to keep the housekeeper and the space around her in view. Foreground and background remain legible, so we can look beyond the central figure without losing her. It is an effective way of showing how little privacy there can be in a life spent attending to other people. Occasionally the compositions are so carefully arranged that we start inspecting the picture instead of following Cleo, and the stillness becomes a little forbidding.

Eugenio Caballero’s production design makes the household feel inhabited, even under the scrutiny of those wide shots. The period detail remains available for inspection throughout the long takes, but it rarely seems to be competing with the people. The intricate sound design helps keep that carefully reconstructed setting from feeling inert. We can admire the depth of the image without forgetting that this is a place where people have to live and work.

Editors Alfonso Cuarón and Adam Gough leave the domestic routines room to unfold, making their duration part of our understanding of Cleo’s job. Cutting away sooner would make the work easier to overlook. The episodic construction is less consistently effective: some stretches feel as though they are waiting for us to finish admiring them. At 135 minutes, the film occasionally presses too hard on our willingness to watch and wait, particularly when the composition has already told us what we need to know.

The harder question is how much of Cleo we are allowed to know beyond her usefulness to this family. Alfonso Cuarón recognises the class difference, and the camera gives her working life an unusual amount of space, but the film’s gratitude sometimes makes us wish it would allow her to be more difficult. Yalitza Aparicio keeps that concern from taking over: her restraint suggests feelings that the household cannot simply claim to understand. We do not need a speech explaining her, though there are moments when we want the reverence to relax.

Do not come to *Roma* expecting the family’s troubles to arrive as a tidy sequence of confrontations and explanations. The film asks us to spend time with a woman whose work would usually be hurried past, and trusts that she can hold our interest. For us, she does, even when the elaborate framing briefly gets in her way. Give it an uninterrupted evening; the quiet scenes need more attention than a distracted viewing can spare.

*Fi1m score 86, published 16 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics warmly praise Roma, with admiration clustering around Alfonso Cuarón’s black-and-white photography, the detailed recreation of 1970s Mexico City and Yalitza Aparicio’s performance as the housekeeper Cleo. The long takes and wide compositions draw particular attention for placing domestic routines alongside the city’s wider social upheaval. Many reviews find the film deeply moving, crediting Aparicio’s quiet expressiveness and Cuarón’s attention to the women whose work sustains the household.

The disagreement concerns how close this carefully controlled filmmaking brings us to Cleo. Variety admires the images but finds the perspective detached, while The Times argues that the formal devices privilege Cuarón’s memories over a searching account of domestic servitude. Reservations elsewhere concern the slow pace and limited character connection. The spread is wide despite the strongly positive consensus: the same watchful distance strikes admirers as compassionate and dissenters as a barrier to feeling.

## Straight answers

**Is Roma worth watching?**

*Roma* is worth watching for anyone with the patience for a slow, closely observed domestic drama, and we scored it 86. Alfonso Cuarón follows the housekeeper Cleo rather than the family she works for, and Yalitza Aparicio holds the long, quiet takes without asking for sympathy. Give it an uninterrupted evening; a distracted viewing will miss what the stillness is doing.

**How long is Roma, and what is it rated?**

*Roma* runs 2h 15m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a drama film.

**Where can I watch Roma in the US?**

*Roma* is streaming on Netflix in the US. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Roma, and is it suitable for children?**

*Roma* carries a UK 15 certificate (R in the US), so it is not made for children, though it is a drama rather than a thriller or a horror film. The upheaval in the household is adult in nature and the film sits with it at length rather than dramatising it for shock. Teenagers old enough for the certificate and prepared for its pace should manage it.

**How does Roma compare to Late Spring?**

*Roma* and [*Late Spring*](https://film.one/film/late-spring) are both patient family dramas in which duty and private wishes surface through everyday routine, but Ozu's film is the more affecting of the two. *Late Spring* keeps a father and daughter close and painful to watch; *Roma* widens the frame to a housekeeper and the class difference around her, and its careful compositions sometimes hold us at a distance. Choose Cuarón for the setting and Aparicio's performance, Ozu for the deeper cut.

**What should I watch after Roma?**

After *Roma*, try [*The Quiet Girl*](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-girl) (2022, Fi1m 84): Patient attention to a child makes small domestic kindnesses matter. Then [*Late Spring*](https://film.one/film/late-spring) (1949, Fi1m 92): Family duty and private wishes emerge through carefully observed daily routines; and [*The Spirit of the Beehive*](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive) (1973, Fi1m 87): A child’s watchfulness makes a troubled adult world feel strange and threatening.

### Reviews we read (30)

- **Financial Times**, Nigel Andrews (5/5): Cuarón's wonderful Roma is a modern-day neorealist classic in Spanish, a compassionately caustic tale of a rich family's maid knocked up and knocked about amid social injustice. Aparicio's performance gives simple-hearted goodness and defiance a transcendent emotional conviction. [Read](https://www.ft.com/content/2529acd6-f30a-11e8-9623-d7f9881e729f)
- **Little White Lies**, David Jenkins (3/5/5): Cuarón’s masterpiece, an artwork that towers above the pretenders; a monumental love poem to Mexico and the woman who made him a man. The film eliminates narcissism to achieve pristine purity in its voyage of personal memory and self-expression. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/roma)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (5/5): Cuarón's most personal film yet is a bravura, richly detailed evocation of 1970s Mexico City childhood, centered on two resilient women from different classes abandoned by the men in their lives. The widescreen monochrome images and intricate sound design stand out for their eerie beauty and authenticity. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/02/roma-review-alfonso-cuaron-ode-to-childhood-70s-mexico-city)
- **The Telegraph** (5/5): Cuarón's sweeping, heart-quickening period piece is the film of the year, a personal story told on a blockbuster canvas with levels of beauty and daring that are continually amazing. Its crisp monochrome images and grand-scale sequences reaffirm him as the master of the teeming set-piece. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/roma-reviewalfonso-cuaron-returns-mexico-sweeping-heart-quickeningly/)
- **Time Out**, Tomris Laffly (5/5): A richly textured masterpiece and cinema at its purest and most human; an absorbingly rich tribute to the resilient women who raised him. The film features astounding interplay of foreground and background in long takes that honour unsung domestic rituals. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/roma)
- **Empire**, John Nugent (95/100, inferred): The critic calls Roma a masterpiece, praising its grounded yet ambitious domestic drama and profound humanism. It singles out the stunning technical prowess and authentic emotional portrait of its characters. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/roma-review/)
- **Screen Daily** (90/100, inferred): Alfonso Cuarón has made his most personal film; it may also be his best. The director writes a love letter to devoted women while spurring himself to a glorious technical achievement that feels like reading his autobiography. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/roma-venice-review/5132140.article)
- **Slant Magazine**, Jake Cole (90/100, inferred): The review commends Cuarón's thrilling formal artistry in using long takes and deep-focus compositions to reveal Cleo's inner life and social position, framing the film as autobiography and autocritique. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/roma-2018/)
- **Evening Standard**, Guy Lodge (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Roma as a true intimate epic that deftly positions the bigger societal picture alongside one woman’s personal struggle. It highlights the central performance of Cleo and the film’s rich, human scale. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/roma-review-a-gorgeous-tale-of-seventies-mexico-a4004471.html)
- **Film Comment**, Jonathan Romney (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Cuarón's achievement in blending intimate domestic detail with historical sweep, presenting the story through the perspective of a young housekeeper in 1970s Mexico City. It highlights the film's humanist realism, meticulous production design, and the magnetic performance at its center. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/venice-film-week-roma/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (85/100, inferred): The critic says the film lives up to lofty expectations with a beautiful, deliberate and ultimately moving portrait of domestic life. He singles out its meditative quality and exact recreation of a specific time and place from the director’s memory. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-roma-review-20181119-story.html)
- **Radio Times**, Karen Krizanovich (★★★★): A striking, heartfelt historical drama that opts for art house black and white to tell this poignant semi-autobiographical story. Cuarón takes over lighting and camera duties to striking yet effortless effect in a sublime love letter to his youth. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/roma-netflix-movie-review-a-striking-heartfelt-historical-drama/)
- **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film persuasive in its beauty and wins the viewer over with its serene stoicism and sumptuous recreation of the past. He singles out the lead performance and the film’s ability to evoke both innocence and the intuition of its collapse. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/17/alfonso-cuaron-bears-witness-to-peril-with-roma)
- **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (60/100, inferred): The critic describes it as a luminous vision and Proustian reverie that is gorgeously done but ultimately a hermetic art object rather than a masterpiece. He singles out the lordly detachment and God’s-eye view that keeps viewers absorbed more than deeply moved. [Read](https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/roma-review-alfonso-cuaron-1202919033/)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (2/5): Cuarón's festival smash is specious, timid and dated, a beautiful-looking dirge too in love with its formal devices to grapple with contradictions or fully engage with its central premise of domestic servitude. The episodic structure and godlike perspective privilege the director over the material. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/article/roma-review-w6t2lx7jd)
- **IndieWire**, Eric Kohn: The review hails it as Cuarón's best since Y Tu Mama Tambien, a riveting personal black-and-white drama centered on a silent indigenous witness navigating family upheaval and historical events. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/roma-review-alfonso-cuaron-venice-1201998623/)
- **Sight and Sound**, Nick Pinkerton: Cuáron’s magnificently crafted memoir casts us back to a 1970s childhood in the throes of family break-up, ruptures on the streets of Mexico City – and a Mixtec housekeeper given the weight of the drama. The film decentralises the artist as a young man by showing dissolution through the eyes of a domestic. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/film-week-roma-reframes-alfonso-cuarons-boyhood-through-eyes-his-familys-maid)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy: The critic praises the film's exceptionally beautiful black-and-white imagery and Cuarón's masterful control, noting its dispassionate yet compelling focus on the overlooked lives of the maids, especially Cleo, set against family and social turmoil. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/roma-review-1137976/)
- **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (Critic’s Pick): The critic calls it a masterpiece and an expansive emotional portrait of life buffeted by violent forces. She singles out Cuarón’s use of both intimacy and monumentality to express the depths of ordinary life. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/movies/roma-review.html)
- **Vulture**: The critic describes it as a technically stunning epic that masterfully blends intimate personal stories with broader historical forces through innovative camerawork and panoramic sequences. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/roma-movie-review-alfonso-cuaron.html)
- **/Film**, Chris Evangelista (10/10): The critic hails Roma as a singular masterpiece of humanity and empathy that draws on Cuarón’s childhood to tell a visually resplendent tale. The theme of empathy and the film’s compassion are singled out as what makes it remarkable. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/560898/roma-review/)
- **HeyUGuys**, Daniel Goodwin (5/5): The critic calls Roma a harmonious masterpiece and cine-sonnet to Cuarón’s home and childhood that operates with complex mechanisms beneath its surface. It is praised as breathtaking, commanding and epic, with visual splendour singled out for its profound effect. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/roma-review/)
- **Collider**, Adam Chitwood (A): The critic hails the film as a masterpiece and an epically intimate chronicle of family change seen through a domestic worker's eyes. They single out Cuarón's direction and cinematography for creating an objective observer viewpoint that makes the emotional impact and performances, especially Yalitza Aparicio's, profoundly affecting. [Read](https://collider.com/roma-review-netflix/)
- **The Ringer**, Lindsay Zoladz (90/100, inferred): The critic declares it a masterpiece that turns the viewer inside out with its personal, grand-scale story of memory and endurance. They single out the breathtaking wide-shot cinematography, emotional climax in the final half-hour, and Yalitza Aparicio's exquisite lead performance amid themes of class, gender, and absence. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/14/movies/roma-alfonso-cuaron-netflix-review)
- **Polygon**, Karen Han (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the film as an impressive, immersive work that builds like a symphony from personal memories of abandonment and pregnancy. They single out Yalitza Aparicio's remarkable performance as the unflinching core and the way the film handles class, colonialist issues, and quiet episodic moments connected by epic images. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/25/18233268/roma-movie-review-netflix-oscars-alfonso-cuaron/)
- **Den of Geek**, Peter Stuart (3/5): The review finds Roma visually striking and thematically rich in its portrayal of strong women amid personal and political turmoil, but notes that its slow pace and focus on subtle character dynamics may leave some viewers underwhelmed despite the acclaim. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/roma-review-will-cuar-n-s-oscar-favourite-win-over-the-netflix-crowd/)
- **The Skinny**, Philip Concannon (★★): The critic admires the film's ambitious technical execution and rich period recreation but criticizes its emotional distance, flat visuals, and overreliance on spectacle over deep character connection, making it easier to respect than to love. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/roma)
- **Deadline**, Pete Hammond: The critic hails it as a unique, personal work from a master filmmaker with real emotional impact and breakthrough techniques. They single out the impeccably authentic performances from the mostly non-professional cast, especially Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo. [Read](https://deadline.com/video/roma-review-alfonso-cuaron-netflix/)
- **The Playlist**, Jessica Kiang (B+/A-): The critic describes Roma as an immensely moving and stunningly personal project that refocuses on the housekeeper Cleo with remarkable empathy. The recreation of the past world and the act of gratitude toward the real-life inspiration are singled out for praise. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/alfonso-cuarons-roma-review-20180830/)
- **The Wrap**: The critic calls it a heartfelt masterpiece of mood and nostalgia that proves Cuarón can deliver powerful storytelling on an intimate scale. They single out the quiet, quotidian moments and Yalitza Aparicio’s expressive performance as the housekeeper Cleo for particular praise. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/roma-film-review-alfonso-cuaron-netflix/)

## Details

- **Director:** Alfonso Cuarón
- **Director:** Alfonso Cuarón
- **Writer:** Alfonso Cuarón
- **Cinematography:** Alfonso Cuarón
- **Editor:** Alfonso Cuarón, Adam Gough
- **Production design:** Eugenio Caballero
- **Costume design:** Anna Terrazas
- **Producer:** Nicolás Celis, Alfonso Cuarón, Gabriela Rodríguez
- **Cast:** Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo Gutiérrez; Marina de Tavira as Sofía; Diego Cortina Autrey as Toño; Carlos Peralta as Paco; Marco Graf as Pepe; Daniela Demesa as Sofi; Nancy García García as Adela; Verónica García as Teresa
- **Runtime:** 2h 15m
- **Certificate (MPA):** R
- **Release (the US):** 21 November 2018
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 2018); [BAFTA Best Film winners](https://film.one/collections/bafta-best-film.md) (Winner, 2018); [Golden Lion winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-lion.md) (Winner, 2018)
- **Budget:** $15 million
- **Box office:** $1 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BS27ngZtxg

## Where to watch in the US

- Netflix: streaming

*Checked 2026-09-16.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 2019: Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Director (won); Best International Feature Film (won)
- BAFTA Film Awards 2019: Best Film (won)
- International Submission to the Academy Awards 2019: International Submission to the Academy Awards (nominated)
- APRECI Award for Best International Premiere 2018: APRECI Award for Best International Premiere (won)
- BIFA for Best Foreign Independent Film 2018: BIFA for Best Foreign Independent Film (won)
- Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography 2018: Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (won)
- Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Director 2018: Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Director (won)
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Film 2018: Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Film (won)
- National Board of Review: Top Ten Films 2018: National Board of Review: Top Ten Films (won)
- New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film 2018: New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film (won)
- San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film 2018: San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film (won)
- Venice Film Festival 2018: Golden Lion (won)

## If you liked this

- *The Second Mother* (2015): Another household where affection for the housekeeper leaves the terms of employment untouched.
- *The Quiet Girl* (2022), Fi1m 84: Patient attention to a child makes small domestic kindnesses matter. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-girl.md)
- *Late Spring* (1949), Fi1m 92: Family duty and private wishes emerge through carefully observed daily routines. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/late-spring.md)
- *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: A child’s watchfulness makes a troubled adult world feel strange and threatening. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md)
- *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93: Domestic employment exposes class divisions, with less stillness and considerably more argument. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md)

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© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/roma