A Most Violent Year
A24 | Release Date: December 31, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 29, 2015
A far more interesting film than its title implies. And a film you’ve never seen before. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 15, 2015
Nearly every scene in A Most Violent Year is pitch perfect. Chandor the writer comes across as a big fan of David Mamet’s, and Chandor the director invokes stylistic touches reminiscent of Sidney Lumet, among others, but Chandor is no cover artist. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 15, 2015
As a great New York story, it’s also a great American story about ambition and failure, about the kind of people who make it, the kinds who don’t, and all the things that can go wrong. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 30, 2014
A vibrant crime story filled to overflowing with crackling situations, taut dialogue and a heightened, even operatic sense of reality, A Most Violent Year captures us and doesn't let go. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 30, 2014
J. C. Chandor, the writer and director of this pulpy, meaty, altogether terrific new film, and Bradford Young, its supremely talented director of photography, succeed in giving this beat-up version of the city both historical credibility and expressive power. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 30, 2014
Chandor (“All is Lost”) has made a movie that quietly but ferociously immerses us in a time and place, with atmosphere done in minimal yet evocative strokes. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJames RocchiNov 10, 2014
A Most Violent Year asks you to watch and listen and pay close attention; it also rewards that investment with subtle, real pleasures and provocations. Set in that messy place where crime, business, law and politics intersect — which is to say, the real world — A Most Violent Year is a slow-burn drama about what kinds of compromises you'll make in order to tell yourself you haven't compromised. Read full review
100
HitfixDrew McWeenyNov 8, 2014
J. C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year is a powerfully told story, a thrilling surprise, and both Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain do remarkable work. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJan 3, 2015
A Most Violent Year isn't an explosive film. It builds slowly, simmering toward an inevitable day of reckoning. It's the kind of uncompromising movie we don't see much of anymore. And it makes you nostalgic for a time when the world was worse and the movies were better. Read full review
91
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeNov 6, 2014
The pacing, the performances (Albert Brooks is a stand-out as Abel's lawyer), and every facet of the production serves the story and the film's larger ideas. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 14, 2015
The film is slow at times, despite bursts of action, and Chandor could have let it breathe a little more. The seriousness grows stuffy every now and then, but these are small quibbles. A Most Violent Year is an outstanding movie about business and marriage, not necessarily in that order. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid DenbyJan 5, 2015
Some of the menacing atmosphere, and even a few scenes, descend from the first two “Godfather” movies. But, in fact, Chandor has done something startling: he has made an anti-“Godfather.” Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyNov 6, 2014
A tough-minded, bracingly blunt look at the sometimes debilitating cost of doing business that casts an unblinking eye on the physical, emotional and moral bottom line. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 21, 2015
A Most Violent Year is its own thing, hypnotic and exacting and as subtly savage as mellow-voiced Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler),” which opens the film and sets the tone. I was fully in thrall to it all. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 30, 2014
Evocatively shot by "Selma" wizard Bradford Young, A Most Violent Year reflects a world where nothing is held sacred. You watch with nerves clenched, holding on tight. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 29, 2015
A Most Violent Year has its share of wham-bam moments — a car-truck-foot chase into the city's bowels is superb — but the action never speaks louder than Chandor's hard-boiled words. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloDec 29, 2014
There are a couple of exciting set pieces, including a superb chase sequence in which Abel pursues one of the hijackers along some train tracks, but A Most Violent Year is primarily interested in detailing the ways in which moral gray areas inevitably shade into true darkness. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnNov 6, 2014
The filmmaker is ultimately better at constructing nuanced environments and troubled figures than making every piece of the equation gel as a whole. But that's a minor issue in the overall tapestry of Chandor's carefully designed world. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonJan 21, 2015
Although A Most Violent Year may hit fever pitch when Abel engages in a nerve-wracking chase of a stolen tanker, it's in the murky uncertainties and frosty climate that it endures and excels. Read full review
80
EmpireAngie ErrigoJan 19, 2015
Stylish, sophisticated, simmering crime and character drama with Shakespearean dimension and bravura performances. Who knew heating oil could be a sexy subject? Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksNov 8, 2014
JC Chandor’s period crime drama is rigorous, resourceful and as smart as a whip...But its canny tactical struggle remains a joy to behold. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinNov 8, 2014
It’s a nocturnal fantasy, seductive and ablaze with threat. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 7, 2014
A Most Violent Year, Chandor’s absorbing no-bull NYC drama, further clarifies what might be the most promising career in American movies: an urban-headed filmmaker attuned to economies of place and time, with an eye on the vacant throne of Sidney Lumet. Read full review
80
VarietyScott FoundasNov 6, 2014
In his third turn behind the camera, writer-director J.C. Chandor has delivered a tough, gritty, richly atmospheric thriller that lacks some of the formal razzle-dazzle of his solo seafaring epic, “All Is Lost,” but makes up for it with an impressively sustained low-boil tension and the skillful navigating of a complex plot (at least up until a wholly unnecessary last-minute twist). Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 29, 2015
Abel is a man with ideals in a world that has no use for them: If he’s going to succeed, he’s going to have to use his wits instead of bullets, and although the odds against him are formidable, watching his struggle is riveting entertainment. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 29, 2015
Gritty, suspenseful and almost poetic in its depiction of an unforgiving town, A Most Violent Year is just shy of being great. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 28, 2015
This isn't a revolutionary or thematically rich motion picture, but it's a well-told story featuring solid performances and a nice sense of atmosphere. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 15, 2015
A Most Violent Year, then, is something of a science experiment, with Abel the good rat trying to make it to the other side of the maze, uneaten and in full possession of the cheese. In its weaker moments, the movie struggles to get out of the lab. At its best, it reminds us that the maze is as big as the world and as timely as today. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 15, 2015
If A Most Violent Year has a weakness, it’s in that structural looseness.... Still, A Most Violent Year is an engrossing, often beautiful film, and a breakout opportunity for Isaac. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 15, 2015
This is a film for actual moviegoing grown-ups who don't mind a little quality now and then. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJan 3, 2015
It's quite good, for what it is. But it's that "for what it is" part that proves slightly exasperating. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 3, 2015
In a film with righteous outrage yet limited violent action, it takes a great performance to make us root against meeting violence with violence. Isaac and Chandor make that come off. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 3, 2015
It’s a gangster movie that tries to be more than that, not always successfully. In his own small-scale way, Chandor wants to expand the reach of his vision to “Godfather” status, with Abel as his shining (tainted) knight. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayDec 14, 2014
J.C. Chandor's fondness for situational irony is empowered by the spartan efficiency of his method, and that of most of his performers. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirJan 3, 2015
It’s all just a little more boring than it ought to be. Read full review
70
The DissolveKeith PhippsDec 30, 2014
Chandor’s film suggests more than it can explore, and a contrived climax makes the film seem like less than the sum of what’s preceded it. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 29, 2015
Like that camel-hair coat Abel wears, A Most Violent Year is classy and commands respect, but a stronger pulse under the lapels would make us care much more. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle SmithDec 30, 2014
A Most Violent Year is a small picture, but each brushstroke is laden with detail and craftsmanship. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 30, 2015
A Most Violent Year harks back to the cinema tradition of the 1970s, with its deliberate pace, its simmering tension, its gritty cynicism and its central moral dilemma. At the same time, it has something to say about the way business is done in 2015. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatt GlasbyJan 21, 2015
A sombre crimer that resists easy thrills, investing instead in grit, intelligence and complex characterisation. Read full review
60
SlateDana StevensJan 3, 2015
A most curious movie, one with nearly all the elements of a classic crime-family saga and yet somehow lacking the moral complexity and emotional heft of the films to which it pays fastidious aesthetic homage: the New York–set urban thrillers of Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Prince of the City) and Coppola’s Godfather series. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJan 3, 2015
I like — as always — what Chandor attempts: not just to denounce capitalism but to explain in detail how people go wrong. But the overcomposed, sedate A Most Violent Year lacks the one thing it most needs: violence. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanFeb 2, 2015
The story’s unbelievable, end to end. Read full review
40
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekDec 30, 2014
Grand in its aims but tepid in its conclusions, A Most Violent Year burns slow and gives off very little heat. It's not really that violent. But it sure feels like a year. Read full review
More From This Movie

79 Critic Reviews

7.0 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL