Broker
Neon | Release Date: December 26, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJan 2, 2023
This is a moving drama about people pushed together by fate who end up not merely helping each other survive but elevate through an increasingly harsh world. Read full review
100
BBCNicholas BarberMay 27, 2022
Broker keeps on getting funnier and knottier as secret motives are revealed, sympathies shift, mysteries deepen and dangers multiply. It is, on one level, a farcical crime caper, but it is so elegantly plotted that it never seems contrived. Read full review
100
The PlaylistIana MurrayMay 27, 2022
Absorbing and heartwarming, it’s easy to forget that this tender drama is about human trafficking. Read full review
95
Paste MagazineKayti BurtOct 18, 2022
Every baby deserves to be loved and taken care of, but so does every adult. Broker does an impressive job of articulating how these two truths are inextricably intertwined. Read full review
91
IndieWireElla KempMay 27, 2022
It’s one of the master’s most transparent and — when it comes to confrontations about what parents, and specifically women, can or should do for themselves and for the babies they are forever bound to — brave films of his career. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 26, 2022
Kore-Eda, remarkably, doesn’t counterfeit a happy ending, but he also refuses despair. He’s an honest broker of heartbreak. Read full review
90
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 27, 2022
As often with Kore-eda’s pictures, Broker is about family, but it extends beyond that theme to talk about fundamental aspects of life — the need to belong, the hope of connecting with likeminded souls, and the desire to find a place called home. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfJan 11, 2023
Kore-eda’s nonjudgmental approach to all his films is what makes him such an enticing auteur, and with Broker he brings what he excels at to a new destination with an all-star South Korean cast that really understands his material and delicate subtleties. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 23, 2022
Broker marks another minor miracle from writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda, featuring another one of his makeshift families. Read full review
85
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 27, 2022
Gentle, sad, and funny in a just-shy-of-cutesy way, Broker continues Kore-eda’s tradition of handling tough subject matter with a light touch. Read full review
83
ColliderChase HutchinsonSep 14, 2022
When it all comes together it proves to be yet another poetic and patient cinematic reflection on the families we build for ourselves from one of the best observers of humanity to ever do it. Read full review
83
The Film StageLuke HicksJun 1, 2022
Broker marks a thematic continuation of career-length fascination with alternative families and the legal, social, and philosophical values that paint such complicated ethical portraits of them. The director still has plenty to say, and does so quite eloquently. Read full review
80
Little White LiesCharles BramescoMar 10, 2023
Everyone’s reaching for a system of support. In most cases, allowed by Koreeda with admirable generosity, they can latch on to one another. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyFeb 24, 2023
The winner of the Ecumenical Jury Award at the 2022 Cannes Festival finds warmth and empathy in the unlikeliest and most unethical places. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerFeb 21, 2023
If it’s not God-tier level Kore-eda, Broker explores the toughest themes — emotional and physical abandonment — with the gentlest touch. Treat yourself. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinDec 28, 2022
There’s certainly enough potential mayhem, desperation and danger here (including the gangsters on Sang-hyeon’s tail) for “Broker” to have become a dark, propulsive action-drama, in another filmmaker’s hands. But Kore-eda focuses on — and mines — the grace notes, better angels and soulfulness of his characters in such lovely and relatable ways that we’re grateful for his humanistic, more empathetic priorities. Read full review
80
SlashfilmRafael MotamayorJun 1, 2022
Broker is another showcase of empathy from Kore-eda, a movie about found families and finding a home with each other, about the small acts of kindness that can truly mean the world to someone. Though its tone doesn't always work and its runtime is excessive, it is an emotionally devastating and life-reaffirming movie that is hard not to sympathize with. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 27, 2022
The hackneyed thieves-with-a-heart-of-gold trope is reinvigorated by the sharpness of the writing and Song’s Basset Hound charms. While Broker occasionally gets close to cloying, especially in its neat ending and jaunty score, Koreeda keeps it the right side of cutesy. It’s best enjoyed as a modern-day fairy tale – only, one where the abandoned baby sparks nothing but enchantment. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 27, 2022
Kore-eda is surprisingly generous toward his characters, nearly all of whom are breaking the law, but whose fundamental decency is brought out when dealing with others in need. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 27, 2022
Much of this might have been formulaic in less artful hands, but Kore-eda has an unfaltering lightness of touch, a way of injecting emotional veracity and spontaneity into every moment. Read full review
75
Film ThreatRay LoboJan 26, 2023
If there’s an overriding idea that Broker leaves you with after the tears roll down your cheeks, it is the sense that family transcends familial bloodlines. Family does not have to be something you are born into. Family can be something you can patch together and create. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 19, 2023
With a less probing screenplay and an amplification of the manipulative elements, Broker could have been a generic melodrama. However, Kore-eda strives for something more thought-provoking. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 10, 2023
Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s follow-up to “Shoplifters,” his Oscar-nominated 2018 film about a family of liars, cheats and thieves, is, like that unexpectedly heartwarming drama, a story whose darker themes of social dysfunction and fissure are sublimated into a fable of surprising sweetness. Read full review
75
Original-CinLiam LaceyJan 2, 2023
A mixture of social realism, melodrama, and road comedy, the two-hour-plus Broker isn’t Kore-eda’s best work. But it’s redeemed by the filmmaker’s signature deep empathy for his lonely characters. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrJan 2, 2023
Broker is definitely a slow burn that can feel a bit repetitive at times, though the introduction of Hae-jin (Im Seung-soo) as an 8-year-old orphan with Premier League dreams helps get the film over a meandering hump. Read full review
74
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 26, 2022
Broker too frequently goes broad and wide, resulting in a story that doesn’t earn the happiness that its flawed characters desire, and eventually achieve. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMartin TsaiDec 26, 2022
Though Kore-eda began his career as a documentarian, his positions on social issues are far from neutral. He reveres the resilience of those who have been dealt a bad hand in life, a sentiment that certainly shines through in Broker. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaSep 12, 2022
Even when it edges toward sentimentality, Broker is redeemed by Kore-eda Hirokazu’s customarily bracing humanism. Read full review
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