Sightlines · reception

How Rose was received

2026 · Markus Schleinzer · Rose on Sightlines

The arc

Rose premiered at the 2026 Berlinale, where Sandra Hüller won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance, then opened in Austria and Germany in April and went on to pick up festival prizes in Hong Kong, Istanbul, and Brussels; it sits at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and 88 on Metacritic, with a limited US release through MUBI set for December 11. Its theatrical take so far stands at $681,546, with the American opening still to come.

What’s debated

Critics split on what the 17th century is doing here: Time Out and Sight and Sound read the film as a direct rebuke of present-day gender policing, while TheWrap's Ben Croll argued Schleinzer resists exactly that contemporary framing, treating the past as an austere and alien lens instead.

Its footprint

The Hollywood Reporter declared the title role such a thrilling fit for Hüller that no other actor could be imagined in it, and Sight and Sound framed her work as a performance about performing. Austria made the acclaim official by choosing Rose as its submission for the 2027 Academy Awards international feature race.

Where it stands

It is early, with the US release still ahead, but a Berlinale Silver Bear, a string of festival prizes from Hong Kong to Brussels, and Austria's Oscar slot already mark Rose as one of 2026's consensus art-house successes.

Did you know? The film began when a historian friend, reading an old crime file, told Schleinzer about a documented case of a woman who had lived as a man in early modern Germany; rather than dramatize one life, he and co-writer Alexander Brom built Rose as a composite of hundreds of researched accounts.