Anatomy of a Fall
Neon | Release Date: October 13, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
43
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Irish TimesTara BradyNov 9, 2023
It’s a knotty, fascinating delve into the French legal system, the nature of truth and the institution of marriage. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 25, 2023
If it sometimes feels a bit contrived, and if its conclusion will leave some viewers unsatisfied, Triet has made a film that succeeds brilliantly — on terms that are as exacting, rigorous and precise as her unflappable heroine. Read full review
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyOct 19, 2023
As an intelligent, adult examination of a marriage gone sour, wrapped up in the trappings of a legal thriller, Anatomy of a Fall is original and engaging, though perhaps not so profound an investigation into truth as some of its advocates have claimed. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 13, 2023
Triet’s movie is a monument to the ambiguous and unknown, a labyrinth of half-glimpsed causes and vague, sinister effects. Read full review
100
Rolling StoneDavid FearOct 12, 2023
Though some may come for the murder mystery, it’s Triet’s way of using that genre to get at deeper notions of love turning to hate, and tiny marital fissures that turn into chasms, that really makes this something close to an anti-romantic masterpiece. Read full review
100
The Associated PressLindsey BahrOct 10, 2023
Anatomy of a Fall may not be a film with many concrete answers, ultimately, but the truths it uncovers are irrefutable. Read full review
100
ColliderTherese LacsonJun 6, 2023
Part true crime legal thriller and part family drama, Triet's Palme d'Or winner is a thrilling story about perception, truth, and ambition. Read full review
100
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 22, 2023
This whole film has a wizardry to it which you’ll be thinking about for days. Read full review
100
The PlaylistElena LazicMay 21, 2023
Triet’s breathtakingly intelligent and subtly perverse masterpiece takes the long way through the cold and the snow to address, in nuanced but never ambiguous terms, the ineffable and irreducible mystery at the heart of deep relationships — between two partners, between parents and their children, between words and the world. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubCourtney HowardOct 12, 2023
It’s a precise study of how strife and conflict metastasize if left unresolved. And by grounding these fine-tuned dramatics in the guise of a genre picture, it works to profound effect. Read full review
91
IndieWireBen CrollMay 21, 2023
As it calls the institution of marriage to the stand, Triet’s piercing film holds the ambient tensions and illogical loose ends of domestic life against the harsh and rational light of a legal system that searches for order in chaos. Read full review
90
IGNLex BriscusoOct 17, 2023
Justine Triet's courtroom drama-thriller Anatomy of a Fall choreographs a riveting dance between tragedy and the transference into survival mode via the manipulation of reality and the power of invention. With star Sandra Hueller in full control of a bold and emotional script by Triet and and co-writer Arthur Harari, the consequences of a fractured marriage make for a deeply engrossing watch impossible not to get sucked into. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithOct 13, 2023
What you take away from Anatomy of a Fall is largely up to you, but it’s a thoroughly engrossing case study. Read full review
90
ABC NewsPeter TraversOct 13, 2023
Prepare to be wowed by one of the best movies of the year, starring a sensational Sandra Hüller (heads up, Oscar) in Justine Triet’s spellbinding murder mystery that is really a forensic anatomy of a marriage told through the gripping story of a wife on trial for killing her husband. Read full review
90
Screen RantPatrice WitherspoonSep 9, 2023
Anatomy of a Fall is as addicting as any true-crime story, and as riveting as some of the best murder mysteries thanks to a team effort in front of and behind the camera. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 21, 2023
From the opening scene, set in an unfinished chalet in the French Alps, it often feels as if the movie is eavesdropping on moments too intimate to be shared. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterJon FroschMay 21, 2023
Anatomy of a Fall is, above all, about the essential unknowability of a person, of a relationship, and the perilous impossibility of trying to understand — whether it’s a child puzzling over his parents or a courtroom straining to make sense of an inscrutable suspect. In other words, it’s a film concerned with storytelling — the stories we tell others about ourselves and those we, as individuals and a society, tell ourselves about others. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiOct 18, 2023
With surgical precision, Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari’s script exposes nearly every contemporary relationship schism you can imagine (or maybe would sooner forget). Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 2, 2024
The strength of Anatomy of a Fall comes from its willingness to embrace ambiguity and a lack of closure in ways that intrigue (rather than frustrate) the viewer. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenNov 2, 2023
Perhaps the best lead performance of 2023 belongs to Hüller, who is achingly sincere as Sandra, while never pleading for an ounce of audience sympathy. It’s her purposeful performance, more than anything else, that opens the door to doubt. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshOct 28, 2023
Anatomy of a Fall is anchored by the powerfully present Hüller, who bleeds and breathes into the environment, even as she stands out. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonOct 25, 2023
Once the case comes to trial, Anatomy of a Fall becomes an engrossing courtroom drama, but not for the reason you think. The French court is a vessel for grandstanding and verbal sparring matches; it’s far less stodgy than the American ones we see in even the most absurd courtroom movies. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 10, 2023
It’s a daring, long film that sometimes feels too chilly and self-indulgent, but it builds to a series of scenes that hit like a punch. Read full review
88
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 8, 2023
Both understands our private relations as enigmas to those on the outside, as well as wields that mystery for a subtle, striking examination of the imaginative means by which we fill in personal and collective blanks. Read full review
85
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 20, 2023
Triet skillfully spins the viewers’ sympathy into a worst-case scenario, literally putting these feelings on trial, and it serves to compound the excitement. It’s a simple question, really: What if a domestic drama got crossed with a courtroom thriller? Anatomy of a Fall is the glorious answer. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyMaureen Lee LenkerSep 4, 2023
Films (and novels) are meant to reflect our lives back to us, to hold up a mirror and give us a way to engage with the more thorny issues of our existence via storytelling. Triet is both inviting us to do that with Anatomy of a Fall and warning against putting too much stock in the stories we read and tell ourselves (or is she?). Read full review
83
The Film StageDavid KatzMay 23, 2023
It’s an immensely enjoyable, idiosyncratic entertainment. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 13, 2023
Ultimately, one of the key pleasures of the picture is its uncertainty – the niggling doubts that remain, and the sense that a crucial piece of the puzzle is tantalisingly out of reach. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyNov 10, 2023
It’s hard not to be drawn in. That’s the trick of Anatomy of a Fall. Sandra is a fascinating, one-woman puzzle box, thanks largely to the strength of Hüller’s performance. Read full review
80
EmpireLaura VenningNov 8, 2023
Surprisingly gripping for a film devoid of real action, this family drama masquerading as a murder-mystery touches on universal marital tensions; it is both enigmatic and very human. Read full review
80
Paste MagazineKatarina DocalovichOct 20, 2023
Anatomy of a Fall may not reinvent the wheel, but it’s still one of the most sharply made courtroom dramas in recent memory. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekOct 18, 2023
Triet’s approach to telling this story is decidedly tasteful; she layers one subtly intriguing detail atop another, like a muted accumulation of snowfall. It could all be a little too hushed and antiseptic—but Hüller’s performance gives the movie the vitality it needs. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriOct 17, 2023
It’s not hard to see why Triet’s picture resonates. It has both suspense and intellectual ambition; plot revelations don’t just send the story in new directions, they expand the film’s cultural scope. Read full review
80
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 13, 2023
The film is very good at laying out the forensics of the case, but Triet is after something larger. I’m not sure she altogether succeeds: She wants to show how Sandra is being judged not just for the murder but, in effect, for everything – for her failures as a mother, a lover, an artist. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 6, 2023
This is less of a courtroom drama, I reckon, and more of a discordant, highly strung character clash with legal bells and whistles tacked on. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 22, 2023
A thriller of real psychological and emotional depth, Triet’s film is a treat. Watch it with a partner and argue about it afterwards. Read full review
80
TheWrapSteve PondMay 22, 2023
Part thorny family story, part whodunit, part courtroom drama and part meditation on the nature of truth and fiction, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall takes two hours of conversations and makes them both provocative and propulsive. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLee MarshallMay 21, 2023
Featuring a compelling central performance from Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall takes a while to engage, but turns into a twisty, thought-provoking drama. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 21, 2023
The film does not signpost the traditional twists and turns and dramatic reversals, but keeps a cool distance, letting us wonder if Sandra is guilty or not, and we are kept guessing until the end. It’s a lowkey, almost downbeat drama, but with something invigoratingly cerebral. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 18, 2023
Huller is asked to play a wonderful mess of contradictions – and the actress pulls off the job marvelously, all steel nerves and darting eyes. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineMark HansonSep 11, 2023
At its best, Anatomy of a Fall is nothing less than a rigorous modern treatise on the knotty interpersonal dynamics of long-term relationships and how conveniently they can be distorted when exposed to public scrutiny. Read full review
70
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsNov 10, 2023
It’s confident, classical filmmaking, yet despite its many formal and thematic pleasures, doesn’t offer a whole lot that’s new. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAmy NicholsonOct 12, 2023
In a sense, Triet has mapped a path to nowhere. You can respect her choice intellectually and still walk away grumbling in frustration. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyOct 12, 2023
As the cinematic equivalent of an airport read, Anatomy of a Fall is adequate—not brisk but twisty, not stylish but unobtrusively informational. But the artistic failings are obvious and distracting throughout. Read full review
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