Belfast
Focus Features | Release Date: November 12, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 55 Critic Reviews
Positive:
47
Mixed:
7
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 10, 2021
Taken all together, Branagh’s film is in its own special way like a cinematic equivalent of the Irish brogue that fills it: It’s lovely, it’s lyrical and it’s next to impossible not to be swept up by its charms. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 9, 2021
Everyone has a story from childhood that remains vivid in memory, and that feels important enough to immortalize in art. But few people have the ability to get their story out from their minds and onto the page, the stage or the screen. Yet when that does happen, and when it’s done right, you can get something original and heartfelt, such as Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical Belfast, one of the glories of this year’s cinema. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 9, 2021
Belfast is deserving of double-digit Oscar nominations, from the picture itself to Branagh’s directing and writing to the editing and cinematography to any number of the performances, with Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench near locks in the supporting categories. This is the best movie I’ve seen so far in 2021. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 13, 2021
Love letters to the past are always addressed to an illusion, yet this is such a seductive piece of myth-making from Branagh. Read full review
100
The PlaylistMonica CastilloSep 13, 2021
The parts of the movie that are going to resonate the most have the pacing they need to bring up one’s own memories of listening to a grandparent’s advice, of doing something you shouldn’t have to impress someone, or working up the nerve to talk to someone you liked. Perhaps these resurfaced memories are an unintended souvenir of visiting Branagh’s “Belfast,” but it’s one that may stick with moviegoers for quite some time after the credits roll. Read full review
95
TheWrapSteve PondSep 13, 2021
The film feels true in the way it must be exploring Branagh’s memories of a tumultuous and confusing time, and the way it pays tribute to a vibrant community as that community is irrevocably changed. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 12, 2021
There’s only one trouble with his semi-autobiographical account. It’s so polished—so spirited, funny and skillfully calibrated—that it could be taken for a while as a crowd-pleaser and not a lot more. Sign me up for the crowd, though. This is surely the most pleasing film I’ve seen so far this year, but also the most affecting. Read full review
90
CNNBrian LowryNov 10, 2021
Branagh has directed all kinds of movies over the past 30 years, from his frequent adaptations of Shakespeare to "Cinderella" and the aforementioned "Thor." It's perhaps appropriate, though, that his most personal film would also turn out to be his crowning achievement. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 8, 2021
It’s a heartfelt salute from Branagh to his hometown, and what he loved there. Read full review
90
ABC NewsPeter TraversNov 5, 2021
No wonder Kenneth Branagh’s funny, touching and vital look at his own coming of age in Northern Ireland’s turbulent capital city is the Oscar frontrunner for Best Picture. No movie this year cuts a clearer, truer path of the heart. It’s his personal best. Read full review
90
IGNChris TillyOct 24, 2021
Belfast is a love letter to both a city, and the ghosts of Kenneth Branagh’s past. There’s clearly soul-searching going on as he re-examines events from his childhood, and how they affected those he loved, and the decisions they made. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 15, 2021
Although there are certainly elements of tragedy in the storyline, this is first and foremost a crowd-pleaser. It touches the heart and, in addition to being Branagh’s most personal film, it’s also his most intimate. Unquestionably one of 2021’s most affecting motion pictures. Read full review
88
Paste MagazineTara Bennett Nov 12, 2021
Experiencing Branagh come full circle with Belfast is like getting an invitation to observe an artist come to terms with his roots. There’s the expected nostalgia, but also the graceful observation of the wisdom and clarity acquired with the power of hindsight. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 11, 2021
Belfast is a moving, tense and yet often lightly comical experience. And as one of the best pictures of 2021 ends, you remember how good a filmmaker Branagh can be, and marvel at how he was able to pack all this warmth, wit and trauma into just 100 minutes. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 10, 2021
For its frequently painful contours, there’s an abundance of pleasures to be had in Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s irresistible memoir about growing up amid the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 10, 2021
Shot in soft black-and-white, with color occasionally peering in at the movie houses where Buddy spends rapt hours, Belfast is brief, tidy and lovely; a heartfelt story of family and home, and how where the former is, the latter resides. Read full review
80
NMELou ThomasFeb 10, 2022
It’s best to think of Belfast as a great, crowd-pleasing coming-of-ager set in the city, rather than a serious, nuanced depiction of the conflict. Branagh’s tale leans heavily on the autobiographical and it’s about feelings rather than facts. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyJan 21, 2022
Here, the working-class milieu invites imagination, adventure, and camaraderie rather than a Ken Loach-style crushing of hope, while a climactic confrontation on divided streets is framed like a thrilling showdown in a black-hat-vs.-white-hat western. But it is the child’s- eye view, the wit, and the generosity of spirit on show that elevate Branagh’s Belfast. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJan 20, 2022
A gorgeous, proudly unreliable glance over the shoulder. A tribute to an often maligned city. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJan 20, 2022
Belfast is exactly the kind of film that wins an audience award at a festival — highly entertaining and beautifully done without ever being innovative or challenging, finding the universal in the specific, the upbeat in dire circumstances. Slight but winning. Read full review
80
CineVueMatthew AndersonJan 20, 2022
With wit, grace and a sincere affection for the town of his birth, the writer-director explores the people and stories that populated his childhood. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJan 13, 2022
Possibly the most uplifting film ever made about a time of unending violence, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast comes with a bruised heart and an unquenchable spirit of optimism. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriNov 13, 2021
Branagh wisely gives the movie the quality of a childhood memory, of stolen moments and eavesdropped conversations. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisNov 11, 2021
Branagh’s remembrances may be idealized, but with Belfast he has written a charming, rose-tinted thank-you note to the city that sparked his dreams and the parents whose sacrifices helped them come true. Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 17, 2021
The result is engaging, tender film-making which tugs at the heart-strings, spurred by a sympathetic cast and the young lead, newcomer Jude Hill. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 13, 2021
The affectionate cine-memoir is rendered all the more effective on account of young discovery Jude Hill and its portrayal of a close-knit family (Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench and stay-put grandparents) crowded under one roof. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 13, 2021
Branagh’s most personal film is imperfect, but the emotion that it builds in the final section, as the family plays out a wrenching universal drama of emigration, is searing. Read full review
79
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 8, 2021
The film is not a masterpiece, but a memory box. Comforting, inviting, and one you won’t mind keeping close. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisNov 10, 2021
The micro-homilies proliferate, the stagy drama heightens, and subtlety gives way to a little pandering. You can forgive these transgressions – there’s never any doubt that Branagh has put his heart into this endeavor – but they keep it from achieving greatness. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedNov 16, 2021
The memories are vivid, but there’s no plot to connect them, and the film is rendered almost totally incomprehensible by accents as thick as congealed week-old mutton stew. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 11, 2021
Boldly filmed in black-and-white, Branagh wrings a heartfelt narrative from a superb cast, though the story stumbles somewhat when it strays from its youthful focal point. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireNov 11, 2021
In recalling his youthful days in an insular neighborhood in the titular city, Branagh has made a film that’s both intimate and ambitious—his Roma, if you’ll forgive the inevitable comparison to Alfonso Cuarón’s recent masterpiece. Read full review
75
Original-CinLiam LaceyNov 11, 2021
After proceeding through the childhood epiphanies and observed details, Branagh’s memory journey stumbles in the last act as he attempts to elevate the material into scenes of climactic magical realism. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrNov 10, 2021
So many films are described as love letters — to places, to time, to people, to even the idea of cinema — that the phrase has almost been rendered meaningless. But Belfast really is the quintessential cinematic love letter. Read full review
75
The Film StageZhuo-Ning SuOct 14, 2021
While often amusing, Belfast‘s script only succeeds on an anecdotal level. It’s a string of well-written moments that don’t necessarily add up to tell a good story. Read full review
75
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 17, 2021
What works best about Belfast is what Branagh doesn’t do. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 26, 2021
What Branagh has made is a kind of home movie writ large. It is a private stash of memories and imaginings, which touches only glancingly on the wide and troubled world beyond, and which feels most alive when it turns to face the consolations of home and the thrills that lie in wait on the big screen. Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonNov 19, 2021
It’s become a lazy critical cliché to declare that a film is a love letter to a city or to the past or to cinema, but in this case it’s inescapable, and Belfast succeeds in passing that love along to us. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 18, 2021
It’s a sweet and engaging movie, but one that sacrifices some profundity in order to faithfully capture the world through a boy’s eyes. Read full review
70
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 15, 2021
It’s a memory piece, evoking a specific time, place, and political crisis in a way that is indelibly, achingly personal. Read full review
70
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiNov 12, 2021
A moving and well-acted film, Belfast explores the decisions families make in the wake of devastation and turmoil; it’s Branagh’s best film in years. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekNov 12, 2021
It’s both intimate and almost comically egotistical—yet Branagh has clearly poured so much love into it that you can’t be too hard on him. It’s hard to resist the movie’s affectionate energy. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensNov 11, 2021
It’s a humanist crowd-pleaser with just enough historical heft to count as something more than a small family drama, and it’s also a deeply personal labor of love that, even if it never quite knocks your socks off, seems too sincere and too beautifully crafted to hate. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 7, 2021
Branagh's genuine affection and nostalgia for his subject suffuse the movie; if only the misty romanticism of his story could match it. Read full review
65
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSep 13, 2021
It's a handsomely-made film with a game cast, and it's clear that it's a very special project for Branagh. But the filmmaker is unable to convey to us, his audience, why it's so special. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyNov 10, 2021
Lyrical and episodic, Belfast is often affecting, if far too sentimental. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineMark HansonSep 16, 2021
Kenneth Branagh's film understands the malleability of memory, and it embodies cinema’s ability to offer a kind of escapism, but up until its climax it plays like a retreat from reality. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyJan 21, 2022
Branagh doesn’t seem as eager as Cuaron to interrogate his own memories, or to reckon with how the protective veil of one’s parents can shield a child from reality. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinNov 4, 2021
It’s a pity this one isn’t a little more distinctive and sharply honed. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Nov 10, 2021
This may, in content, be the most “personal” film in the up-and-down career of the classically trained stage and screen veteran. But however autobiographical the material, Branagh approaches it from a curious remove: He’s made a memoir that’s tenderly nostalgic in the broad strokes without ever locking the audience into an emotional perspective. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 11, 2021
There is a little whimsy, or perhaps a touch of blarney, in “Belfast,” though you can sense Branagh hard at work, straining to keep every impulse toward cutesiness in check. The tone is stringently measured. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 13, 2021
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and this scattershot crowd-pleaser renders them both in such broad strokes that it seems as if Branagh can only imagine the Belfast of his youth as a brogue-accented blend of other movies like it. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Simran HansJan 23, 2022
Kenneth Branagh’s unabashedly feelgood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupted in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective. Read full review
40
Little White LiesHannah StrongJan 21, 2022
This story about growing up amid the onset of The Troubles should be more emotionally and politically potent than it is. Instead, it’s a careful, uncontroversial (and thereby unremarkable) film that fails to exert any lasting impact after the credits roll. Read full review
38
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenMar 16, 2022
Even while understanding that much of Belfast is supposed to be from the perspective of Buddy (Jude Hill), a young boy who witnesses the beginning of Ireland’s “Troubles” in his working-class neighborhood (and serves as something of a stand-in for writer-director Kenneth Branagh), I still felt a type of artistic naivete at work—a belief that all you need is black-and-white cinematography and a cute kid to create something of deep meaning and emotion. Read full review
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