"Eerily beautiful film... Stunning...Meaningless death can be transformed into meaningful art..."
Richard Schickel, Time Magazine

"Brilliant... An important new director announces his arrival." Gene Siskel

"One of the year's best films - brilliant directorial debut. Work like this is what keeps me going. A reminder of the nobility that film can attain."
Roger Ebert

"High calory visual feast."
Max Alexander, Variety

"Visually and narratively stunning... Heartfelt, poetic and violently anti-violent."
Deborah Young, Variety

"Rugged, passionate, lyrical, haunting and wildly improbably poetic, 'Before the Rain' is one of the most memorable motion pictures we're likely to see this year."
Michael Medved

"Powerful, poetic, harrowing drama. (A)"
Entertainment Weekly

"Stunning, often hypnotic... Almost has the impact of a masterpiece... Shakes you up... Coming seemingly out of nowhere, it's a movie that seems somehow fully formed, unshakably confident, the work of a filmmaker alive and inventive in every shot he takes."
Chicago Tribune

"Filled with passion, blood and urgency... Bold, hard-hitting, grandly arched, yet intimate and immediate."
Boston Globe

"A myth-like, three-part tale that treats time as a plaything... Exceptionally well-made, filled with memorable performances." Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Raw theme and polished style."
The City Paper, Washington DC

"It literally thunders with emotional power."
Washington Post Weekend Section

"Impressive, devastatingly ironic job."
The Seattle Times

" 'Before the Rain' has both poetic immediacy and a frightening premonition force... Manchevski has superb visual skills; he also has the unforced volatility that marks a natural-born director... Serbedzija gives the character immense sexual authority and a restless, antic humor. Serbedzija is a lionlike, charismatic character that he effortlessly carries the burden of rage and grief."
David Denby, New York Magazine

"A remarkable achievement."
Entertainment Today

"A gleaming virtuosity and visual panache."
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

"A finely crafted lament on the cyclical nature of violence... Testament to how film can probe ancient themes while remaining thoroughly modern."
The Toronto Star

"Stunningly photogenic, often poetic, cinema-savvy."
Boston Phoenix

"A rare, heartfelt gem."
New City, Chicago

"A powerful cry from the heart."
The Boston Sunday Globe

"Poignant examination of individual pain and [...] a fascinating historical rumination."
Dallas University News

"Stunning feature film debut"
New Times

"Powerful and passionate... Its greatness rests in the timeless truths of its narrative... Some of the most luminous closeups since Ingmar Bergman discovered color... Together, the filmmakers and performers create scenes of such emotional opacity that at times we seem to be reading tiny fluctuations of the soul."
Dallas Observer

"Striking"
Chicago Reader

"Impressive film."
Tacoma's News Tribune

"Beautiful craftsmanship... strong performances."
San Francisco Chronicle

"The editing here is a great lesson in the art of mood-cooking... The last forty minutes or so of this movie are as tight and luminous as anything you'll see onscreen this year...
With its flashes of rapture and its groundswell of good sense, 'Before the Rain' is a movie that doesn't even dream of solving or dissolving the nightmares in the former Yugoslavia - it just shows a few people trying to behave decently and getting nothing for their pains except more pain."
Anthony Lane, New Yorker

"Self-assured sweep and coherence of visuals... A poetic statement."
People Magazine

"Thought-provoking... suspenseful... rich."
The Island Ear

"Stunning and poetic."
Dallas Morning News

"Manchevski's achievement is all the more admirable. He's made an art film in a hostile climate."
LA Village View

"The movie casts a special kind of spell."
Detroit Free Press

"Working in a sophisticated, elliptical style, Mr. Manchevski brings to his first film an overwhelming vision."
Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Manchevski succeeds on a grand scale with a groundbreaking film of love and war.
Cinematographer Manuel Teran brings grave beauty and telling detail to Manchevski's stirring cry from the heart."
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"It has the look of a slick Hollywood production, yet makes no effort to soften or simplify its complex issues."
New York Newsday

"Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Manchevski's drama is the masterful way he sustains an air of profound foreboding."
The Houston Post

"Manchevski has developed a masterful critique which is so emotionally powerful and provocative that it resists analysis. Beautifully shot and dramatically restrained, this film is not just a passionate outcry, but also a superlative and engrossing pictorial of the moral and ethical dilemmas that communal conflicts provoke."
Geoffrey Gilmore

"A guarantee: it will haunt you for days."
Premiere

"Fierce poetry, but also a strong sense of authenticity... An amazing feature debut... Conveys the passion that can not be concocted, even in Hollywood."
Maclean's

"Remarkable... Extraordinary sense of simultaneity."
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

"Stunning triptych."
Angela Baldassarre, Globe and Mail

"Weirdly beautiful ethnic fable."
San Jose-Mercury News

"This film, made by sophisticated filmmakers for mature audiences is a profound musing on humanity." (*****)
The Toronto Sun

"Director Milcho Manchevski has made a debut so astonishingly assured in writing and technique he is guaranteed a footnote in movie history even if he never makes another movie.
'Before the Rain' is stunning. It's the sort of remarkable debut that reinstalls faith in the movies viability as genuine art."
The Miami Herald

"Edgy, unsettling movie that I find extremely hard to shake."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"A work of art this finely wrought renders conversation redundant."
Dallas Observer