Frida

"Prepare to be seduced."

2002 2h 3m EN

👍

7.4

SOLID

🍅

77%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.3

IMDB

★7.4TMDB · 2,226🍅77%Rotten Tomatoes●61Metacritic★7.3IMDB · 100,861

DramaRomance

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A biography of artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.

“Prepare to be seduced.”

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Cast

Salma Hayek Pinault
Frida Kahlo
Alfred Molina
Diego Rivera
Mía Maestro
Cristina Kahlo
Patricia Reyes Spíndola
Matilde Kahlo
Edward Norton
Nelson Rockefeller
Antonio Banderas
David Alfaro Siqueiros
Diego Luna
Alejandro
Roger Rees
Guillermo Kahlo

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Julie Taymor
Writers: Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava
Languages: English, Russian, French
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 4.7× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 24 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Russian, French.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Julie Taymor, shot by Rodrigo Prieto. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Original score by Elliot Goldenthal. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Françoise Bonnot shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Salma Hayek Pinault and Alfred Molina and Mía Maestro carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Prepare to be seduced.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Julie Taymor directs. Rodrigo Prieto behind the camera. Elliot Goldenthal scores. Françoise Bonnot cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English, Russian, French.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Made its money back 4.7× over at the box office.
2Released 24 years ago.
3Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Russian, French.
4Directed by Julie Taymor, shot by Rodrigo Prieto. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Elliot Goldenthal. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Françoise Bonnot shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Salma Hayek Pinault and Alfred Molina and Mía Maestro carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Prepare to be seduced.".
9IMDB entry: tt0120679 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 12 themes, including "mexico", "love of one's life", "bisexuality", "painter".

The technical file

Cinematography: Rodrigo Prieto
Original score: Elliot Goldenthal
Editing: Françoise Bonnot
Production design: Felipe Fernández del Paso
Costume design: Julie Weiss
Makeup / hair: Judy Chin
Sound: Blake Leyh
Stunt coordinator: Gerardo Moreno
Runtime: 123 min · 2h 3m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $12,000,000
Box office: $56,298,474
Return: 469% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Frida (2002)
Rotten Tomatoes: 77% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 61/100
IMDB rating: 7.3/10 · 100,861 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

Won 2 Oscars. 17 wins & 47 nominations total

Academy Award for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Julie Taymor

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Filipe Manuel Neto2023-07-08
★ 8/10
A good biographical film about one of the greatest American painters of the 20th century. I'm not a deep connoisseur of Mexican painting, but I don't think I'm saying heresy if I consider Frida Kahlo the most international and well-known artist in the country, the most notable of Mexican painters. She was considered a surrealist, but she didn't really agree with that because she didn't paint dreams. In fact, I agree with the artist: what she left us, in powerful and dramatic canvases, is a portrait of her life, what she lived, felt and saw. Kahlo's paintings look simple. She was not an academic, coming out of a very expensive and elegant school. She painted with feeling, with an art that was her own, not a copy of others, nor an attempt to follow any school or any master. She painted with simplicity, emotion and drama, in what we can call a “naïf style”. She was married, in a very tempestuous relationship, to the painter Diego Rivera, but he, although more technically perfect, is not as good as she is because he lacks in emotion and sincerity what he has left in political activism. In fact, what I don't like about Rivera's art is the constant apology for communist ideas. Art and propaganda are different things, although they can be harmonized. The film, directed in a very elegant and competent way by Julie Taymor, invites us to know the artist's life from her youth until her death. It begins shortly before she suffers the accident that will weaken her for the rest of her life (something the film does not tell us – and it is a pity – is that she had polio as a child). The film focuses on her relationship with Rivera and, later, on her affair with the exiled Leon Trotsky. However, and as the film makes clear, the artist was bisexual and had a lot of extramarital relationships with men and women, like her husband, who had a variety of lovers. I dare say that this is one of the most solid cinematographic works of Salma Hayek's career so far. The actress gave us a powerful, intense and personality-filled performance. Beside her, Alfred Molina also gives us a strong and charismatic work. Geoffrey Rush, an actor who rarely lets us down, was not so good as the disgraced Russian revolutionary. I found it unconvincing, and the romantic relationship with Kahlo sounds artificial, more like a whim than a powerful attraction between characters. The film also has cameos by António Banderas, Edward Norton and others, but they were misused and accessories. Technically, the highlight goes to the cinematography, crafted with a lot of creativity: I cannot fail to highlight, for example, the scenes in the Aztec ruins, or that scene where Kahlo is treated in the hospital, with a graphic animation that remembers the artist's paintings. The insertion of the paintings is very well executed, so that we can clearly understand the connection between Kahlo's art and life. The soundtrack, with various themes alluding to traditional Mexican music, does an excellent job, and the recreation of historical times and environments was also done with great care and discretion.

Production companies