Metacritic reviews

A rapturous masterwork.

It's a film noir that grows more potent as its secrets are revealed.

Complex and devious beyond easy recounting, Bad Education is about the fallout from the ending of a "pure" love between boys, consecrated in an Almodóvaran temple--a movie theatre.

Superbly orchestrated, visually impressive.

In accounting for Almodóvar's identity as an artist and a man, Bad Education comes together like a bold and far-reaching summation of his career to date.

Spain's most important living filmmaker isn't at his very best in this complicated tale, but it raises still-timely questions well worth pondering.

May be at once too gimmicky and too sincere. But it still exerts an uncanny power: Like the best of Almodóvar’s work, it throws you a first-love sucker punch that will stagger your heart, mind, and soul.

Ultimately, Bad Education must be considered to be a minor effort from a major director.

There's something dull and evasive at the film's center--for one thing, contrary to its festival buzz, Bad Education tiptoes around the issue of priesthood pedophilia; lovelorn gazes are as desperate as it gets.

Such garbage that taking a shower at the Bates Motel is a more appealing alternative.