'Gravity' director's new film 'Roma' is one of the best Netflix originals of all time, critics say

Netflix

"Roma."

• Critics are calling "Gravity" director Alfonso Cuarón's new movie "Roma" one of the best Netflix original releases of all time. 
• The film premiered to standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival this week, and it currently has a 93% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 
• "Roma" will debut on Netflix and in theaters later this year.

"Roma," the latest film from Alfonso Cuarón, the Oscar-winning director of 2013's "Gravity," premiered to a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival this week.

With 15 reviews from the film critics who saw it in Venice, "Roma" currently has a 93% "fresh" rating on the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The score places it behind 2017's "Mudbound" as the second-highest rated Netflix original film of all time. 

Here's how Netflix described the film in a release:

"'ROMA' follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s."

In a laudatory review for The Hollywood Reporter, critic Tom McCarthy called the film "an immersive bath in some of the most luxuriantly beautiful black-and-white images you've ever seen," and labeled Cuarón's direction "the work of a great filmmaker who exhibits absolute control and confidence in what he's doing."

Cuarón said in an interview with Variety this week that he worked out a "very harmonious" distribution model with Netflix that would allow "Roma" to debut on the streaming platform and in theaters later this year. 

Variety reported that Participation Media sold the film to Netflix under "a new type of hybrid distribution agreement," the details of which are "being kept under wraps."

Previous Netflix original films like "Roma" that the company has seen to have Oscar potential, including "Mudbound" (which earned four Oscar nominations this year), have received a limited run in select theaters to meet the Academy's requirement that nominated films appear for at least a consecutive week in "a commercial theater." 

It's unclear how extensive the theatrical release for "Roma" will be compared to past releases, and Netflix has yet to announce a release for the film. 

Watch the trailer for "Roma" below: