It is a lucid, beautiful work of innovation which hides its fondness for its characters under a cloak of august formalism.

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is dazzling in the brittle brilliance of its execution, the precision of its structure and movement, the total, hermetic self-containment of the tiny world it creates.

Take it or leave it, it is a real contribution to technique to latter-day European cinema.

[Irm] Hermann gives the best performance of the film—and she does so without saying a single word. In my opinion, it’s one of the best performances in Fassbinder’s legendary run,