In this small and very smart film, Cronenberg does several things at once and makes them all look effortless, capturing various shadings of consciousness and versions of reality.

Arguably the subtlest, most carefully textured film of Cronenberg's career.

Spider lasts in the mind and it's built to last -- this is a movie that invites and repays repeated viewings.

Exciting spectacle of a master director reining in his abilities to create a work that is etched in acid, burnished in smoke.

His story is sad, compelling and morbidly, tragically watchable.

The most elegantly crafted and confidently directed of all his (Cronenberg's) films, it's a calm, chilling portrait of a blighted soul and, just as calmly but quite stunningly, an evocation of the thought processes behind the blight.

It takes an especially fine-tuned director and an inventive actor to cut as close to the bone as Spider does.

Spider is not a pulse-quickening experience, but Fiennes's art makes it engrossing.

In an instance of director, stars and material melding flawlessly, Spider is a brilliantly realized depiction of a mentally ill individual.

This slow but brilliantly sustained journey into madness is fronted by a remarkable performance from Ralph Fiennes and superb backup from Miranda Richardson in a triple role.

I was floored by Cronenberg's mastery of the material. Fiennes gives one of his finest performances; Miranda Richardson, playing at least three characters in the protagonist's twisted vision, is no less impressive.

The superbly acted Spider is muted in comparison: it’s a quiet nightmare, painted in hospital greens and rust browns.

Deliciously wicked, strangely poetic portrait (adapted by Patrick McGrath from his own novel) of a schizophrenic man at once tyrannized and elevated by oedipal terrors.

It's Cronenberg's finest film, it's star Ralph Fiennes's riskiest role, it's a tour de force for actress Miranda Richardson.