“Jubilee has a rare timeliness. It exactly catches a certain mood, a mixture of political nihilism, punk aggression and nostalgic patriotism, which is very English, very contemporary and oddly attractive. It shows an acutely sympathetic understanding, not of how people behave but of how they dream...” (Vogue)
Jubilee received this rave review in Variety: “Jarman...has forged a film which through its brutal and lyrical vision of contemporary England, should help to restore native and international faith in British cinema... with its punkish soundtrack, attitudes and vision of urban disintegration...(and its) electric performances, operatic elegance and narrative sophistication...
“The year is 1578. Queen Elizabeth I is transported by an angel into the future (roughly our present), where she has the ‘shadow of the time' revealed to her. Observing a renegade women's collective (a pyromaniac, a punk star, a nympho, a bent historian, etc.), Her Majesty watches as the ‘ladies' and their friends go about their picaresque misadventures... Through this process of disemboweling the present through the memory of the past and the anticipation of the future, Jarman unravels the nation's social history in a way that other features haven't even attempted.”