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Metascore
82 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 32 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    100
    Not a heist film, a thriller, a twisted romance, a film noir or a character study, but a unique concoction that bends all these genres to its vision.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    91
    Expertly sinister, office-as-devil's-playground French thriller.
  3. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    91
    Though you get caught up in the criminal element (you really want these people to get away with it), you're also fascinated by who to trust. It's an unusual dance between the awkward and plain that becomes romantic and thrilling -- a subtly impressive feat to say the least.
  4. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    90
    It's a wholly amoral movie, but it's honestly amoral. And that's a relief for the audience.
  5. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    While the plot twists in Read My Lips may be too intensely melodramatic for some tastes, the performances of the two leads are impeccable, just about compelling our belief.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    90
    Like so many European pictures these days, Read My Lips seems destined to be remade in Hollywood, and it is unlikely to be improved by the addition of vainer actors, a simpler screenplay and flashier direction.
  7. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    90
    Since you can't read my lips, read my words: See this movie.
    All this critic's reviews
  8. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    90
    Fascinating and transgressive love story.
  9. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    90
    The movie turns into a serious and rather audacious study in the sexiness of a nonsexual relationship, though by the end the audience may be rooting for the two to quit risking life and limb and just go to bed together. [15 July 2002. p. 90]
    All this critic's reviews
  10. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    90
    The tense climax stretches the story's credibility to the breaking point, but for the most part this is noir of an exceptionally high caliber, its sequence of events revealing two complicated and compromised people.
  11. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    89
    Exciting to watch: The audio disruptions of Carla putting in or taking out her hearing aids and the inventiveness of the way the heist plot is revealed are just a couple of the film's treats.
  12. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    Not a simpleminded movie in which merely being ABLE to read lips saves the day. In this brilliant sequence, she reads his lips and that ALLOWS them to set into motion a risky chain of events based on the odds that the bad guys will respond predictably.
  13. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    88
    A finely written, superbly acted offbeat thriller.
  14. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    88
    Isn't just scary, charming and delightfully unpredictable - it's also smarter and subtler than any new movie out there.
  15. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    This is the kind of unusual but involving picture that's ripe for a Hollywood remake - but while you're waiting for the Sandra Bullock-Ethan Hawke edition (it's a good post-movie game: coming up with your own casting ideas), Read My Lips is well worth checking out.
  16. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    88
    An inventive, propulsive office thriller.
  17. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    88
    Unlike in many character studies, the plot is more than just a simple framework. It is complex and unpredictable, and, as a result, provides the perfect means to better get to know the characters and understand the shifting nature of their relationship.
  18. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    88
    An unconventional and engrossing French thriller.
  19. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    80
    Improbably, Read My Lips escapes the cynicism of much contemporary neo-noir, if only by a hair, by ending as a love story of delightful crackpot idealism, in which Paul has made a crook and a hussy out of Carla, and she's made a gentleman out of him.
  20. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    80
    For as long as director and co-writer Jacques Audiard focuses on the central relationship, his stylish film stays on steady footing.
  21. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    80
    The comedic first part of Jacques Audiard's film doesn't achieve a seamless connection with its melodramatic second half, but you can't deny the originality of his conceit or the tart cynicism of its development.
  22. Variety
    Reviewed by: Derek Elley
    80
    Engaging chemistry between leads Emmanuelle Devos and Vincent Cassel.
  23. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    80
    Audiard keeps things shaky, grim, claustrophobic, doomed. His film has the feel of documentary, as he follows Clara through the daily grind that pulverizes her. We're in her head, literally.
  24. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    75
    You could describe Read My Lips as a love story, but that would make the movie sound much more conventional than it really is. See it now, before the inevitable Hollywood remake flattens out all its odd, intriguing wrinkles.
  25. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    75
    A gritty thriller on the theme of the con man conned. It works as well as it does thanks to a captivating lead performance by Emmanuelle Devos and the superb direction of Jacques Audiard.
  26. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    The two leads don't have sexual chemistry together, but that's part of the point.
  27. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    75
    There's a satisfying craftsmanship to every sequence, the direction is stylish without being show-offy, the plot mechanics are convincing, the pace is breakneck and compelling, and the film does something unique and interesting with its Hitchcockian concept.
  28. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    70
    Hailed as a clever exercise in neo-Hitchcockianism, this clever and very satisfying picture is more accurately Chabrolian.
  29. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    70
    The action is largely psychological, but it's accelerated by Audiard's nervous camera, chiaroscuro lighting, and jangling montage.
  30. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    63
    Offers you the ostensible bargain of two movies in one -- a character study at the outset and the crime caper that follows. The first picture is intriguing, the second stinks.
  31. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    60
    Devos is especially fine as a woman whose inner solitude carries depth charges.
  32. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    The first half is a well-acted psychological drama, but the second half is standard thriller fare with more action than insight.
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