Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

jc-999-591106 This movie proceeds very slowly, it could have been shortened by an hour. That said, the story and acting are very good. The sound not so much. Isabelle Huppert, Kristofferson, Jeff Bridges and the rest of the cast are amazing.

ignatzb I take it that the standard review is something along the lines of just calling it a well photographed flop, which perhaps it was. I recall one reviewer who was terribly upset about the subtitles in a few of the scenes, but this is the fate of subtitles which are widely used in this world to give foreigners magical access to speech in other languages. In China the written language is nearly independent of how it is spoken so while they all speak differently they all write the same thing, more or less. So I am a great fan of subtitles. I once watched a film I had seen before and was quite surprised to see the subtitles. I had remembered what people said quite forgotten having to read those words. What interested me much more was a recurrent motif of people circling around in a ring with multiple rings having some go clockwise and some counterclockwise. We first see this in a grand ball around a tree. We see it again in a dance in Wyoming We see it finally in the various groups of gun fighters and cavalry circling one way or another around the rapidly diminishing feuding groups. I'm not sure what this all means but it is one of the main motifs in the film. I have not read through all of the other critiques so I apologize if this is redundant. I have not noticed it mentioned before.

adamshl It's rather a shame when the Director's explanation of his production is more engrossing than the film itself. That's what I found in listening to Michael Cimino's lecture on Criterion Collection's second disc--a 2012 216-minute "final cut" of this historical epic. The film has obviously been doctored up on Blu Ray: Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's work is now clean, scrubbed and brilliant. Gone is the dull haze and smokey pale that reportedly annoyed early critics. In fact, frame for frame this is a marvelous looking film.However, that alone does not make a complete art work. Coming to the piece cold with no preparation, I simply could not invest myself in the characters or their plight. Not even the opening graduation exercise and ensuing grand waltz particularly captured me. As the film unfolded, I found it difficult to clearly understand what the conflict was really about. By the time I did the movie was well half over. Then, after all the blood and gore action, I finally learned the story of this series of range conflicts in Johnson County, Wyoming was fictionalized!I also learned President Benjamin Harrison did not support either the land barons or the European immigrants, rather he sent in troops to quell the general conflict. Therefore much of the gross brutality in Cimino's work is pure fiction. That revelation to me does not argue well for the late, admittedly talented and committed, director.The performances throughout are all very professional as is the editing.

Crockett16 I've seen a lot of movies in my time. Some of them bad, some okay, some which are masterpieces. Without a doubt, Heaven's Gate is the best film I've seen so far. It is a combination of poetry and realism,the likes of which I've never seen in a movie before. Most films I've seen are either more poetic or realistic. The story involves an association of farmers whose product is being stolen by poor and starving European immigrants in Johnson County, Wyoming. Said association decides to create a death list of 125 immigrants much to the outrage of Johnson County Marshal Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson). The stage is set for a bloody showdown between the immigrants and the association. This scenario is based on a true story called the Johnson County War. As the story goes on, a love triangle develops between the main characters and idealism and realism come to a clash that you won't forget. This film has been overshadowed by controversy due to it's extreme failure at the box office, but don't worry. Heaven's Gate is a masterpiece.