| 100 |
Mr. Showbiz
Michael Atkinson
Naturalistic, gritty, and unrelenting.
|
| 100 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Quiet, rageful indictment of a two-tiered Islamic society.
|
| 100 |
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Suspenseful and ingeniously directed.
|
| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Circles the heart of noisy, modern Tehran with an informal, documentary-like freedom that is thrilling in its naturalism.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
The political implications of the film are manifest, as is the quiet courage of making it.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Restrained yet powerful, devastating in its emotional effects.
|
| 90 |
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
A stunning drama about the desperate state of women in Iran.
|
| 90 |
LA Weekly
David Chute
A triumph of invisible craftsmanship that embraces so much specific detail that none of the women ever comes across as an emblem or an abstraction.
|
| 90 |
Variety
Deborah Young
Both fascinates and horrifies with its bold assertions about what it means to be a woman under a cruel, institutionalized patriarchy.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
A memorable and devastating indictment of the oppression facing many women in Iran.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
Peter Brunette
The fact that this film, so sensitive to woman's plight, was made by a man is perhaps cause for a little hope.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The Circle is all the more depressing when we consider that Iran is relatively liberal compared to, say, Afghanistan under the Taliban.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Such moral outrage, apart from the artistry in which it is embedded, tells us that the forces of change are stirring in Iran.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Panahi's simplicity accentuates the movie's power: its sense of life caught unobserved.
|
| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
A mix of the poetic and the polemic, the film is oddly abstract and untethered.
|
| 80 |
TV Guide
Ken Fox
This tightly structured, often exciting film is among the boldest in a series of increasingly explicit movies.
|
| 80 |
New Times (L.A.)
Jean Oppenheimer
An extraordinary film from a born filmmaker.
|
| 80 |
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
The picture is so dramatically textured that you feel something's happening every minute.
|
| 80 |
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Panahi is a maestro of anxiety. Whatever its political significance, this is a dark, sustained, and wrenching film.
|
| 80 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Panahi creates a raw, riveting film.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
In its brisk way, it's a devastating piece of work, and very brave too.
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
There's no denying it's a tragic film from start to finish, but equally undeniable is the endless stoicism displayed by the women, and Panahi's crisp, meandering direction.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Wesley Morris
It's a startling, speedy, gracefully executed indictment.
|
| 75 |
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
A Kafkaesque series of interwoven stories that depict the hopeless lives half the populace there (Iran) must lead.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
How dangerous it is to be a woman in Iran, especially one going against the wishes of her menfolk, is brought home time after time in these related vignettes.
|
| 75 |
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
A terrific social drama, the work of an artist, not a pleader.
|
| 70 |
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
In The Circle, which is banned in Iran, the enforced society of women is, in effect, a community of adults treated as children.
|
| 63 |
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
This film is fighting the good fight, albeit in a rather heavy-handed way.
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