Azor
MUBI | Release Date: September 10, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinOct 30, 2021
This superb debut feature from Andreas Fontana puts an ingenious spin on the paranoid thriller: its main character is determined to behave as if he isn’t in one. Read full review
100
The Irish TimesTara BradyOct 29, 2021
Watching Andreas Fontana’s wildly impressive first feature, co-written by the director and writer Mariano Llinás, is a little like being Warren Beatty in The Parallax View. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 14, 2021
Pure evil is all around in this unnervingly subtle, sophisticated movie; an eerie oppression in the air. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 13, 2021
Written and directed by Andreas Fontana, making a formally precise, tonally perfect feature debut, Azor is a low-key shocker. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJoe BlessingJun 1, 2021
Azor itself is a code word meaning “to not say too much” or “to keep one’s cards close,” a trait that the film and its protagonist so excel at, viewers will be kept guessing until the last moment. Read full review
90
Screen DailyWendy Ide
The striking feature film debut from Andreas Fontana brings a prickly thriller sensibility to the closed world of high finance and a piquancy to the phrase ‘dirty money’. Read full review
90
VarietyJay Weissberg
Like the intelligent performances — both Rongione and Cléau are standouts — and the terrific art direction, the film’s design reinforces an exquisite, levelheaded decorum about to be smashed by a chillingly cruel monster. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzSep 13, 2021
Set in Argentina in 1980, Azor is a quiet, unhurried, un-flashy film, and that's what makes it unnerving. You come away from it feeling that you've been given a greater understanding of how authoritarian power-grabs happen. Read full review
80
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsNov 2, 2021
It’s perhaps one or two increments too obscure, too puzzling and too unwilling to give anything away that it seems to end mid-sentence, without any traditional closure. Yet it’s still a bold work that puts great faith in its cast to play along with this game of chilling insouciance. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansNov 1, 2021
As far as the plot is concerned, almost nothing happens, and yet Andreas Fontana’s sinewy debut teems with unseen threat. He crafts an atmosphere of grubbiness despite all the polished surfaces. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleSep 17, 2021
To the less patient viewer, the lack of clarity on the finer points of high finance and characters’ backgrounds and not getting period-orienting news updates about the political situation, might seem confounding. But Azor works without them, because those details would only disrupt the artfully portentous chill Fontana gets from the pitch-perfect performances and design, and Gabriel Sandru’s cinematography. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 7, 2021
Azor is Fontana’s first feature, and what’s impressive is how coolly he avoids the temptation to put on a big show, preferring more delicate tactics. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 22, 2021
Fontana’s tale is austere, quiet and posh, mirroring the world he’s depicting. There’s enough mystery here to hold our interest. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineKeith Watson
With its elegantly restrained cinematography, exquisitely understated performances, and quietly sumptuous production design, Azor embodies the same well-mannered urbanity as its protagonist. Read full review
67
IndieWireSiddhant AdlakhaSep 8, 2021
The film seldom wavers from its singular idea and feeling; tonally, it’s a stroll across a plateau by design, but it teeters constantly over that plateau’s edge. Read full review
60
CineVueChristopher MachellOct 30, 2021
Conceptually, Azor, is brilliant and its dreamlike editing that joins one meeting to the next with little connective tissue is often intriguing. But as a viewing experience, it is roundly obtuse with a repetitious, meandering narrative. Read full review
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