Pi (1998)

"Pi turns what should be a metaphoric relationship into a stupefyingly literal-minded thriller."

"As smart as it is, Pi is awfully hard to watch... it has the style and attitude of a no-budget midnight movie."

"It's an interesting technique: drive the audience crazy before you do the same to the main character."

"Pi is a lesson to aspiring film makers everywhere: perfect your skills, be original, be bold... Startlingly good cinema."

"The movie's low-budget look neatly matches the claustrophobia of Max's life..."

"With a lot of simple but effective optical and aural tricks to suggest the workings of Max's unusual mind, this is one of the most intimate movies in recent memory."

"Clever and creepy as hell."

"It's remarkable to what extent Aronofsky has rendered the cerebral kinetically intense."

"Maths meets millennial doom in one of the decade's true originals."

"Aronofsky... is that rare indie filmmaker who doesn't want to make hip romantic sitcoms. He's a genuine experimenter with a spooky visual style."

"(A) brash black and white gem..."

""Pi" may be the most engrossing piece of cyberpunk cinema yet-it took best director's prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival-but it could only have been made by a film student in the age of "The X-Files.""

"“Pi” is a thriller. I am not very thrilled these days by whether the bad guys will get shot or the chase scene will end one way instead of another. You have to make a movie like that pretty skillfully before I care. But I am thrilled when a man risks his mind in the pursuit of a dangerous obsession."