Sally Potter’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 modernist novel is a beautiful historical pageant of 400 years of English history, full of visual and aural pleasures, sly jokes, thought-provoking insights, emotional truths -and romance. It begins at the opulent court of Virgin Queen Elizabeth (Crisp), where the male immortal Orlando receives favour and an estate; and thence follows his quest for love in 50-year jumps through the Civil War, the early colonial period, the effete literary salons of 1750 (by which time Orlando is a woman), the Victorian era of property, and finally a 20th century postscript added by Potter. Fine, stylised performances from an idiosyncratic international cast are headed by Swinton’s magnificent Orlando, who acts as the film’s complicitous eyes and ears.

Time Out

’A classic. A model for independent film makers who follow their own irrational muses to glory.’

Vincent Canby, New York Times