--- title: "Sin City: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/sin-city/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/sin-city" critics_score: 72 critics_reviews: 11 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." --- # Sin City (2005): what the critics said Critics' score 72 from 11 reviews: 9 positive, 1 mixed, 1 negative. Most critics respond positively to Sin City, with praise concentrated on its black-and-white imagery, selective splashes of colour and digital recreation of Frank Miller’s comics. The reviews repeatedly admire how closely Rodriguez and Miller reproduce the source’s look, even when they question what that fidelity achieves. Performances also earn approval, particularly Mickey Rourke’s, while the film’s stylised violence and hard-boiled atmosphere appeal most strongly to reviewers receptive to pulp noir. Reservations cluster around repetitive revenge stories, thin characterisation and violence that becomes wearing rather than dramatic. The central disagreement concerns fidelity: some find it inventive, while Little White Lies admires the visual achievement but argues that reproducing the panels so rigidly prevents the film from working as cinema. The spread is broadly positive but not uniform, with The Guardian offering the clearest rejection, finding the monochrome style insufficient compensation for borrowed ideas and a lack of human depth. ## Empire — Kim Newman Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 3 June 2005. The critic praises the film's extreme fidelity to Frank Miller's source material and its striking black-and-white visuals with selective colour splashes. Rodriguez's direction is called his best work yet, delivering a treat for fans of stylish, violent noir. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/sin-city-review/) ## Little White Lies — Matt Bochenski Rating 4/4/1. 3 June 2005. Sin City is a dazzling collision of art and violence but is hamstrung by its rigid faithfulness to the source material. It is a bold transliteration of the comic rather than a true adaptation, ultimately unsuccessful as cinema because it cannot replicate the stillness and unique power of the panels. [Read the review](https://lwlies.com/reviews/sin-city) ## Radio Times — Sloan Freer Rating 4/5. Frank Miller's hard-boiled comic book comes to spectacular life in this collaboration with Rodriguez, meticulously recreating three interlinked neo-noir stories in black and white with splashes of colour. Stylistically a masterpiece with astonishing visuals, it papers over a repetitious plot and corny dialogue, suiting genre fans best. [Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-pnnbdo/sin-city/) ## Screen Daily Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 29 March 2005. Rodriguez delivers one of the most unremittingly bleak-hearted slices of noir pulp drama ever committed to film, a wildly imaginative black-and-white comic come to life that enthralled Miller devotees and newcomers alike. The film drags somewhat toward the end but its originality, verve and Rourke's standout performance compensate. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/sin-city/4022503.article) ## Sight and Sound — Kim Newman Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 1 June 2005. Rodriguez and Miller deliver a strikingly faithful comic-book adaptation that captures the source's adolescent hardboiled fantasies with visual flair and stylisation. The film excels in its monochrome aesthetic and performances but embraces a simplistic, confrontational morality without depth or variation in tone. [Read the review](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/2398) ## The AV Club — Keith Phipps Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 29 March 2005. The critic praises the film's faithful upload of Frank Miller's comics into a visually striking hybrid of live-action and CGI that redefines ultraviolence and captures the source's terse pulp poetry and oversized themes of guilt and vengeance. They note some overload from the cumulative excess and that certain black humor does not translate as smoothly, but overall commend the ambitious, inventive pastiche that creates a queasily intoxicating new world. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/sin-city-1798200579) ## The New York Times — Manohla Dargis Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 1 April 2005. The critic calls the film a slavishly faithful screen adaptation of Frank Miller's comics that tracks tough guys and dolls from pulp fiction in a permanent midnight world with intermittent color. It praises the visual style and strong performances such as Mickey Rourke's while noting the repetitive violence and limited character depth. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/movies/a-savage-and-sexy-city-of-pulp-fiction-regulars.html) ## Time Out — BW Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 31 May 2005. The film marks a new watershed in CGI filmmaking through its astonishing fidelity to Miller's graphic novels and slickly meshed digital environments. Its Pulp Fiction-style structure and repetitive revenge narratives pummel home the same points relentlessly, though the exceptional monochrome look with vivid colour accents remains a highlight. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/sin-city) ## Variety — Todd McCarthy Fi1m's normalised score 65/100 (inferred from the text). 26 March 2005. The review describes an aggressively faithful rendering of the comic book aesthetic as a Mickey Spillane fever dream that delivers for action fans and geeks but locks the material into a live-action cartoon. It singles out the dazzling visuals, Rourke's ferocious comeback performance, and the score for praise while criticizing the episodic structure and violence substituting for drama. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2005/film/awards/sin-city-1200526928/) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Fi1m's normalised score 40/100 (inferred from the text). 3 June 2005. The film is a flagrant pulp noir fantasy with visually striking monochrome style and lurid colour accents, but it lacks originality and human dimensions, feeling like a borrowed imitation of comic-book source material. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2005/jun/03/1) ## Eye for Film — Angus Wolfe Murray Rating 3.5/5. 4 June 2005. The critic finds the stories shallow with the depth of graffiti and cluttered with clunky lines, but praises the striking monochrome comic-book visuals and advises viewers to let the visuals seduce them rather than overthink the plot. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/sin-city-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) --- © 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/sin-city.md