A Hero
A Contracorriente Films | Release Date: January 7, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
36
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 6, 2022
This astute, subversively funny film fills a broad canvas. Mainly, though, it’s about long division, the all-too-human state of being permanently and unwittingly split down the middle. Read full review
100
Time OutDave CalhounJul 14, 2021
It’s a superb morality play that immerses us deeply in a society’s values and rituals and keeps us guessing right to its powerful final shot. Read full review
92
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 21, 2022
Farhadi wrings two magnificently raw performances from both actors, providing A Hero with its one and only honest truth. Read full review
91
Original-CinJim SlotekJan 19, 2022
Oscar-nominated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation), with his powerful and perceptive tale A Hero, shows us universalities, from the complexities of human nature to the modernized way we’ve manipulated right and wrong. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJan 6, 2022
Even as the story's inevitable reckoning descends, Farhadi allows his modest morality tale to take on a note of battered, ambiguous hope: a cautionary fable whose purest notes ring poignantly, painfully true. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Nov 11, 2021
Part of the movie’s brilliance is in how it questions the very concept of a good deed. Read full review
90
Paste MagazineJacob OllerJan 20, 2022
Iranian master Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero spirals out a good deed to all its messy conclusions, providing fertile ground for the filmmaker’s command of aesthetic realism and closeknit interpersonal dynamics. Read full review
90
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 7, 2022
Just when you think you’ve pinned down someone as good or bad, the tables are turned and the complexities thicken. Just like in real life. Read full review
90
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaJan 6, 2022
In Asghar Farhadi's fascinating, complex A Hero, nothing is simple. And no good deed goes unpunished — if it was even a "good deed" to begin with. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJan 6, 2022
The ability to pull off that kind of moral reversal, to draw you into an almost Hitchcockian complicity with characters at their lowest ebb, is one of Farhadi’s signature strengths as a storyteller. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJan 6, 2022
Nothing in this stressful, intricately plotted fable of modern life is as simple as we or the characters might wish. Read full review
90
TheWrapJason SolomonsJul 13, 2021
Shot with precision, written with elegance and unfolding at a thriller-like pace, A Hero should perform very well around the world after this bow. Read full review
90
Screen DailyLee MarshallJul 13, 2021
Nobody is quite perfect here, nobody fully the villain; and as our suspicions wax and wane about Rahim himself, we, the audience, become the emotional repositories of these constantly shifting grey areas. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfJan 19, 2022
Farhadi takes a seemingly simple idea and threads holes and complications into it, creating a pressure cooker of intensity based on a handful of white lies and distrust. It’s a tragedy of simple misunderstandings, and misgivings. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJan 6, 2022
Farhadi’s artistry is what makes the details so important, both his selection of them and their handling. In much of “A Hero,” one simply has a sense of watching lives being lived. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleJan 6, 2022
A Hero, in which Farhadi returns to his native Iran after a trip to Spain for 2018′s Everybody Knows, is one of the most labyrinthine moral tales you’re likely to encounter. Read full review
83
The Film StageRory O'ConnorJul 19, 2021
A Hero is perhaps a touch too sinuous and convoluted to be considered alongside his great early works, but it plays to his strengths and sensibilities—a clear return to form. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 13, 2021
The film misses the core emotional charge of “A Separation” despite a similar eagerness to wade into the weeds of Iranian civil law, but what it lacks in brute force sentiment it makes up for in the Socratic purity of its structure and the childlike simplicity of its central question: What’s the difference between doing a good deed and not doing a bad one? Read full review
80
Screen RantSarah Bea MilnerJan 23, 2022
It's a remarkably compelling film that is sure to stay in the hearts and minds of audiences for years to come. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 10, 2022
By a useful coincidence, A Hero arrives in cinemas (for viewers hardy enough to visit them) in the wake of Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. Watch one after the other and you may decide, as I did, that A Hero is the more Shakespearean of the two. Coen’s film is powerful but hermetic, sealed off within its stylized designs, whereas Farhadi reaches back to The Merchant of Venice and pulls the play’s impassioned arguments into the melee of the here and now. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansJan 9, 2022
Refreshingly, Farhadi is ambivalent towards his “hero”, and his control over the film’s tone is masterful; what begins as funny and almost farcical, soon shifts into something much sadder and more sobering. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 7, 2022
In common with the director’s most-admired films – including the Academy Award winner A Separation – this new film seamlessly marries genre kicks and social injustice. Read full review
80
Little White LiesAdam SolomonsJan 6, 2022
Amir Jadidi’s haunted-behind-the-eyes performance stays with you, whether or not you want it to. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 5, 2022
Sometimes the smallest things can get away from us. Farhadi knows this, and reminds us, again and again in this outstanding film. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAndy HowellSep 11, 2021
Farhadi is, of course, excellent at revealing character through people thrust into morally complicated circumstances. This is achieved here through a slow build and a masterfully nuanced set of character choices. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleJul 16, 2021
Iran is a complex and bureaucratic country, but it is also the role of social media and so-called ‘fake news’ that lend A Hero a contemporary relevance, even as it feels like an ancient morality tale. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJul 14, 2021
The action always feels rooted in the greater story of the city of Shiraz itself: even a scene as simple as Rahim walking through a shopping centre becomes naturally soundtracked by a musical instrument salesman tuning a dulcimer in his booth. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungJul 13, 2021
The film’s simple, lower-class setting is met with equally direct camerawork, lighting and editing. This feels like the farthest Farhadi has come from his stage work and the sometimes unconvincing dramatic elements that occasionally creep into his films. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 13, 2022
It boasts the filmmaker’s usual high level of unassuming craft; a superb cast; and a couple of limitations, though not flaws, worth noting. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 6, 2022
A Hero runs a bit long at 127 minutes and is at times frustratingly ambiguous, but Farhadi has delivered another insightful slice of life and Amir Jadidi turns in a remarkably intriguing performance as the never quite heroic Rahim. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 5, 2022
The movie takes place in Iran, yet it’s really situated in the crack of daylight that separates truth from a lie. It’s a tight squeeze, Farhadi seems to say, and one whose pinch this tragedy of the everyday makes us feel, acutely. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJan 5, 2022
As an arraignment of the systems that ultimately rule human interaction regardless of the superficial societal differences between Europe, the Americas, and the East, A Hero is a chilling demonstration of how, as the song says, money changes everything. Read full review
75
The PlaylistCaroline TsaiJul 15, 2021
A Hero delivers a nuanced examination of justice—and the many shades of injustice that surround it. Read full review
75
Slant MagazinePat BrownJul 13, 2021
The film is a demonstrative examination of the way our raising of heroes onto social media pedestals diminishes the messy, sometimes impenetrable truth of human lives. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 7, 2022
As further demonstration of the director’s already impressive ability to build stomach-gnawing suspense out of everyday interactions, the movie is well worth seeing. But it also represents a step back in some ways. Farhadi is one of the world’s great filmmakers, but the generosity of spirit that was so pivotal to his earlier work seems to be in retreat in his latest. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekJan 7, 2022
As usual for Farhadi’s films, A Hero is beautiful to look at. Even the interior scenes are brushed with a golden light, and sometimes that light feels like a benediction. But as humanist works go, A Hero demands extra measures of patience on the viewer’s part. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanJul 13, 2021
A Hero, for all that’s good in it, is a Farhadi movie that speaks to our heads (and sometimes has us scratching them) more than it does our hearts. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 13, 2021
A Hero is an engaging and even intriguing film, but I wonder if its realist mannerisms are concealing a slightly unfocused story. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 3, 2022
The best aspect of “A Hero,” and probably the aspect which Farhadi would most like us to contemplate, is the internal journey of Rahim, who, over the course of his difficulties, slowly and belatedly seems to come into his manhood. Read full review
More From This Movie

82 Critic Reviews

7.7 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 86 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
2 84 Are You There God? It's Me,...
3 78 John Wick: Chapter 4
4 75 Polite Society
5 73 Air
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL