As trashy entertainments go, this one’s sometimes pretty swell.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Oct 15, 2025

...a slow-moving yet predominantly compelling drama...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 28, 2024

Altered States is a total cinematic experience that aims to work directly on the emotions but at the same time... it doesn't insult the intelligence while doing so.

Full Review | Jul 27, 2022

Altered States ignites some kind of fire that keeps the collective unconscious warm and the capacity for personal human inquiry ablaze. It's one of the best films that questions why we're here.

Full Review | Nov 4, 2021

Even 40 years after its release, it boggles the mind that something like Altered States could have ever been produced in the first place, much less as an expensive A-level project for a major studio.

Full Review | Dec 29, 2020

Exciting, powerful and frightening, this sci-fi action flick is a near-masterpeice.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 27, 2020

Ken Russell's movie can be quickly forgotten. Many other horror movies arrive to our screens with more imagination and more modesty. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 22, 2019

A sensationalist head-trip, swirling us up in one man's desire to resurrect his "more primitive self," Altered States remains luridly intense.

Full Review | Jan 19, 2018

It opens at fever pitch and then starts soaring -- into genetic fantasy, into a precognitive dream of delirium and delight.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2014

It's got Russell's trademark eccentricity (read: slight bonkers-ness) all over it, which you may take as a warning or a recommendation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2014

Russell's razzle-dazzle hallucinogenic style certainly hits bullseye.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2014

Like much of Russell's work, Altered States is ostentatious and pretentious yet genuinely engaged with ideas and style.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2014

No character -- including William Hurt in the central role -- is even vaguely likable, and the mawkish ending is a laugh. In the Russell tradition, there are brilliant flashes on an overwrought trip to nowhere.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2014

It's by turns pseudo-analytical head-twister and skull-pounding monster romp, including glorious whip-crack dialogue.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2014

Dynamite stylistic flourishes approximate the experience of taking mescaline with the Mad Hatter.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 29, 2013

The film's too aggressively enjoyable to be completely dismissed, though the ending is risible -- I preferred it when this finale was later reconfigured and reused in a-ha's music video for "Take On Me."

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 8, 2012

Think of it as an extravagant and exhilarating, if over-the-top, piece of filmmaking that's silly, to be sure, but engrossing at the same time.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 15, 2012

As the proceedings briskly fly, the silliness of the entire endeavor becomes more readily apparent.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 23, 2010

Visually dazzling loopy drug film.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 7, 2010

Direction by Ken Russell has energy to spare, with appropriate match-up of his baroque visual style to special effects intensive material.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2007