An outstanding directional debut of Nadine Labaki.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 9, 2024

A buoyant film filled with complex relationships and stirring performances. A tribute to the every day life of those who live and work and love in the city of Beirut.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2024

As long as Labaki resists Hollywood tropes and continues to tell stories about her Beirut, she’ll be a director to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Sep 21, 2022

If all this makes the film sound more bitter than sweet, rest assured that Labaki... provides Caramel with moments of joy and laughter as well as tears.

Full Review | Nov 4, 2020

Five ladies teach us to live together in peace in a broken country: the challenge is impossible, but what a good time spent dreaming. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 14, 2020

Utterly inconsequential but completely lovely, and is a strong first film for Labaki as a director.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 6, 2019

Caramel is sweet, but it's never sickly, and it never shies away from how these women have to work round what society has planned for them.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2018

Extraordinary showpiece of the beauty of Lebanese cinema. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 16, 2018

Caramel doesn't have any geopolitical pretensions. It just wants to show that beauty and friendship are universal.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Aug 17, 2017

Caramel is filled with more dignity, class, and realism than a Sex and the City could ever muster.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 5, 2014

A chick flick form Lebanon, this film has some charm

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 30, 2011

It's one of the best films about women you're likely to see this year.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 26, 2008

Many films these days celebrate female solidarity. Post-feminism, it's almost obligatory. But very few do it as convincingly, and with such style.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2008

Taken together, the women tell a universal story about the beauty and battles of daily life.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2008

Labaki, who co-wrote the film and also stars, maintains a knowing comic tone throughout.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 19, 2008

The result is a sweet, but certainly not cloying, film about relationships in modern Beirut %u2013 the city to which Labaki dedicates her film.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2008

This vibrant and intricate look at the lives of five women in Beirut is tantalisingly sweet as the title suggests. There are themes within the themes and the various stories intersect with compelling fluidity

Full Review | Sep 13, 2008

Ritual and rebellion collide in this bittersweet confection casting a rare gaze upon the pleasures, sorrows, dreams and sexual desires of Arab women in the Middle East.

Full Review | Jun 21, 2008

Although the film isn't chatty and people are just a little too soap opera-ish photogenic, the film is often understated enough to charm. Small, tender scenes and little details make Caramel a nice, light passing fancy.

Full Review | Jun 5, 2008

Un cálido y entrañable retrato de mujeres, sus historias personales y sus conflictos, en el marco de una sociedad a medio camino entre la modernidad y las tradiciones. Una verdadera revelación.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 31, 2008