The Magdalene Sisters (2003)
92%RT Audience Score: 89%
Awards & Nominations: 18 wins & 15 nominations total
A typical women-in-prision film made untypical because it’s based on real events.
The Magdalene Sisters is a movie that will make you want to scream at the screen and hug your loved ones at the same time. It’s a disturbing and heartbreaking portrayal of the atrocities that happened in the Catholic Church, but it’s also a gripping story of hope and power. The performances are outstanding, and the direction is excellent. It’s a movie that will stay with you long after it ends, and it’s definitely worth watching. Just make sure you have some tissues nearby.
Production Company(ies)
Twentieth Century Fox, Gordon Company, Silver Pictures,
Distributor
Miramax Films
Release Type
Theatrical, Theatrical (Limited)
Filming Location(s)
Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland, UK
MPAA / Certificate
Rated R for violence/cruelty, nudity, sexual content and language
Year of Release
2003
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Color:Color
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Sound mix:Dolby Digital
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Aspect ratio:1.85 : 1
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Runtime:1h 59m
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Language(s):English, Latin
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Country of origin:Ireland, United Kingdom
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Aug 15, 2003 Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 23, 2004
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
Worldwide gross: $21,107,578
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $34,212,677
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,503
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 3,730,935
US/Canada gross: $4,890,878
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $7,927,486
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,679
US/Canada opening weekend: $84,553
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $137,050
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,821
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Geraldine McEwan – Sister Bridget
Anne-Marie Duff – Margaret
Nora Jane Noone – Bernadette
Dorothy Duffy – Rose, Patricia
Eileen Walsh – Crispina
Mary Murray – Una
Director – Peter Mullan
Producer – Frances Higson
Writer – Peter Mullan
Director(s)
Peter Mullan
Writer(s)
Peter Mullan
Producer(s)
Frances Higson
Film Festivals
Cannes
Awards & Nominations
18 wins & 15 nominations total
Academy Awards
All Critics (149) | Top Critics (48) | Fresh (135) | Rotten (14)
This drama about a shocking reality from recent history balances a light touch with searing intensity and a sense of moral outrage.
March 11, 2008
David Rooney
Variety
TOP CRITIC
Grimly believable.
March 11, 2008
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
TOP CRITIC
A deliberately provocative film that triggers the audience’s emotions in order to highlight important issues of personal freedom. Amen to that.
December 30, 2006 | Rating: 4/5
Alan Morrison
Empire Magazine
TOP CRITIC
A grim and unmistakable masterpiece of bleak, black sorrow.
October 1, 2003 | Rating: 4/5
Marc Savlov
Austin Chronicle
TOP CRITIC
The Magdalene Sisters has the force of an alarm being sounded.
September 5, 2003 | Rating: 4/5
Jay Boyar
Orlando Sentinel
TOP CRITIC
Why was this film made after the homes had already been abolished? One reason, hardly trifling, is that it was made excellently. Thematically, however, it stings.
September 3, 2003
Stanley Kauffmann
The New Republic
TOP CRITIC
The Magdalene Sisters is an intense watch, but one that allows its central characters a sense of hope and power, even amid the atrocities.
December 8, 2021 | Rating: 4/5
Kat Halstead
Common Sense Media
A disturbing, heartbreaking and gripping portrait of religious paranoia manifested through violence.
April 29, 2009
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Cinema Crazed
The movie is an indictment of systems that perpetuate oppression and exploitation by making the administrators believe their every cruel act is justified and by compelling complicity in victims and bystanders.
March 11, 2008
Philip French
Observer (UK)
A damning indictment of the Catholic Church that lingers in the mind long after if ends. Angry, compassionate but never hysterical, this a true cinematic achievement.
March 11, 2008
James Mottram
Film4
December 7, 2007 | Rating: 3.5/5
Jennie Kermode
Eye for Film
This is a riveting piece of drama about a forgotten slice of history, no matter what the esteemed movie critics at the Vatican say about it.
September 27, 2007 | Rating: 5/5
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com…
Plot
A thoroughly mind-provoking film about 3 young women who, under tragic circumstances, see themselves cast away to a Magdalene Asylum for young women in 1964. One of many like institutions, the asylums are run like prisons and young girls are forced to do workhouse laundry and hard labor. The asylum, one of many that existed in theocratic Catholic Ireland, is for supposedly ‘fallen’ women. Here, young girls are imprisoned indefinitely and endure agonizing punishments and a long, harsh working system which leaves them physically drained and mentally damaged. As the girls bond together, it soon becomes clear that the only way out of the Magdalene convent is to escape, but with twisted Sister Bridget running the wing, any chances seem limited…
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
NA
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