"Der einzig wahre Berlin Film!" Jörg Buttgereit

"It is this directness, this clear and present horror that makes POSSESSION so great and singular. Filmed in West Berlin, the film bears both the scars of World War II and the botched reconstructive surgery of the city's Cold War division. A more politically minded film might have looked to the Wall as a metaphor for the disruptive and destructive separation between the couple. But POSSESSION, like a Stephen King novel, consumes and obliterates social anxieties in favor of the primal." Jake Cole, Movien Mezzanine (2016)

"Andrzej Żuławskis filmische Tour-de-force lässt sich kaum in Worte fassen: Isabelle Adjani, die ekstatisch und wie besessen bis zur völligen körperlichen Erschöpfung spielt; ein junger Sam Neill, der mit einer der besten Leistungen seiner Karriere überzeugt; Bruno Nuytten, dessen entfesselte, rastlose Kamera die fiebrige Geschichte hautnah einfängt; Special Creature Effects von Oscargewinner Carlo Rambaldi ("Alien", "E.T.", "Dune"); das geteilte Berlin als perfektes Setting für Annas und Marks emotionalen Ausnahmezustand – all das ergibt einen Film, der sämtliche Kategorien sprengt: Filmkunst, Ehedrama, Paranoiathriller, Horrorfilm, Monstermovie – von allem etwas, und doch viel mehr. Man kann ihn nicht beschreiben. Man muss ihn erleben!" Bildstörung

"Trying to synopsize POSSESSION is next to impossible because it's a film that has the feel and texture of a nervous breakdown; it's cinema as fugue state. And Adjani, who won Best Actress at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, is the whirling dervish at the center of it all. Few actresses have ever been given scenes to play like the one where Anna writhes through a subway tunnel as the camera turns pirouettes around her. It's intense, terrifying, and unforgettable." Adam Nayman, The Ringer (2017)

"It’s a strong contender for the most distressing, astonishing, heart-stopping scene in the history of horror cinema: Isabelle Adjani runs riot in the corridors of the Berlin U-bahn, seeming, as the film's title suggests, completely possessed, a dervish of unrestrained emotion and pure sexual terror – at which point the blood, slime and pus start pouring from her ears. Director Andrzej Zulawski's frank comment on this most infamous scene: 'I told Adjani to fuck the air.'
The crafty double meaning in its title gives some clue as to what to expect from POSSESSION: yes, it's a horror movie, but it's also an intimate, intelligent drama about people, about their hold over one another. Adjani's marriage to Sam Neill is imploding: secret love affairs come to light, harsh words are spoken and screamed, and eventually the knives come out. But that's only half the story: we won't give away what Adjani is hiding in her secret bolthole by the Wall, suffice to say that its revelation – and the increasing hysteria which follows – elevate POSSESSION from a punishing fever-pitch psychological thriller to something far more bizarre and entirely singular.
There are plenty of movies which seem to have been made by madmen. POSSESSION may be the only film in existence which is itself mad: unpredictable, horrific, its moments of terrifying lucidity only serving to highlight the staggering derangement at its core. Extreme but essential viewing!" Tom Huddleston, Time Out