Brooklyn
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: November 4, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 45 Critic Reviews
Positive:
44
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Miami HeraldConnie OgleNov 24, 2015
With compassion, a touch of melancholy and a sense of wonder, Brooklyn reveals the profound truths in a simple, familiar story, ending on a note that’s achingly bittersweet, no matter where you’re from. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaNov 19, 2015
Brooklyn is that rare period drama that doesn't lose itself in its dogged re-creation of another time. Read full review
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonNov 19, 2015
If you think they don’t make movies like they used to, Brooklyn is glorious proof to the contrary. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 12, 2015
The magic of Brooklyn can’t be analyzed, but something in the richness of its relationships puts an essential truth before us — the brevity and immensity of life. We know all about that, of course, but that’s the beauty of great art: It takes what you already know and makes you feel it. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 12, 2015
Soaring, swooning and gently nostalgic, Brooklyn takes melodrama to a new level of reassuring simplicity and emotional transparency. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 5, 2015
It’s possible to be heartwarming and tough-minded, as this wonderful film demonstrates. And it’s possible to be both “old-fashioned” and vibrant, too. It’s the best new/old movie in town. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 4, 2015
A sensitive, dewy-eyed yet mature performance by Saoirse Ronan is the appealing centerpiece of Brooklyn. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyNov 4, 2015
People have spoken about how understated and old-fashioned Brooklyn is, to the extent that it might come across as a pleasant innocuous entertainment. Don’t be fooled. Brooklyn is not toothless. But it is big-hearted, romantic and beautiful. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 3, 2015
A godsend for audiences who hunger for rich emotion presented with wit, grace and not a trace of sentimentality, Brooklyn illustrates the power of restraint in dealing with poignant, impassioned material. Read full review
100
Village VoiceNick SchagerNov 3, 2015
The film serves as an authentic examination of the mid-twentieth-century immigrant experience — and an intimate exploration of one woman's attempt to understand who she is and where she wants to belong. Read full review
100
Total FilmPhillip KempNov 2, 2015
Colm Tóibín’s bitter-sweet novel of the Irish expat experience brought impeccably to the screen by Crowley and Hornby, with Saoirse Ronan excelling herself in the leaf. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJan 31, 2015
Classily and classically crafted in the best sense by director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Hornby, this superbly acted romantic drama is set in the early 1950s and provides the feeling of being lifted into a different world altogether, so transporting is the film’s sense of time and place and social mores. Read full review
100
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezJan 31, 2015
A heartbreaking and poignant story about choices, country, commitments, sacrifice, and love, Brooklyn is a superb, luminous, and bittersweet portrayal of who we are, where we’ve come from, where we’re going, and the places we call home. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJan 31, 2015
The movement of the story—from wrenching homesickness to blooming confidence and a smile on one’s stroll to work—elevates the movie into universal urban poetry. Read full review
91
ConsequenceCollin BrennanDec 29, 2018
Director John Crowley has fashioned a film that feels like a natural evolution from the Victorian novel, one in which the circumstances are deceptively modern even if everything else feels somewhat old-fashioned. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayNov 4, 2015
It’s not easy to make a movie as beautiful as Brooklyn, where the stakes are low but the outcome really matters. This is an old-fashioned entertainment, but one so masterfully crafted and heartfelt that it’s hard not to love. Read full review
91
HitfixGregory EllwoodJan 31, 2015
It's a damn good movie. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 12, 2015
Brooklyn often feels like a throwback in the best way, while Ronan has an old-time star turn, and she makes the most of it. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 5, 2015
Brooklyn grabs us, holds us and moves us on its own. Emotionally it’s a killer. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 3, 2015
Brooklyn endows its characters with desires and aspirations, but not with foresight, and it examines the past with open-minded curiosity rather than with sentimentality or easy judgment. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisNov 18, 2015
If you’re yearning to take a sentimental journey, Brooklyn is the perfect destination. Read full review
88
The Associated PressLindsey BahrDec 29, 2018
Brooklyn is a story for anyone who has ever left home. It’s a story for those who’ve waffled in indecision, for those forming their identities and forging their own paths. It’s a story awash in muted pastel nostalgia about family and love and ambition and heritage and goodbyes. And it’s one of the loveliest films to grace cinemas this year. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 21, 2015
Although not without moments of sadness and tragedy, Brooklyn is sublimely uplifting and life affirming. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 12, 2015
Crowley and his creative team — cinematographer Yves Bélanger, designer François Séguin, composer Michael Brook, costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux — build a cinematic snow-globe of nostalgia, a portrait of two worlds that aches with family lost and freedoms found. It is a beautiful film to experience. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 12, 2015
It's one of the most satisfying films of 2015. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 4, 2015
Brooklyn is easily the year's best and most beguiling love story. The surprise is that it also goes deeper, sadder and truer. Read full review
85
Vanity FairRichard LawsonDec 29, 2018
The movie belongs wholly to Ronan, who at just 20 years old is such a remarkably poised and confident performer. She's a great actress to watch, and Brooklyn is a wonderful, if low-key, platform for her talents. Read full review
85
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeNov 4, 2015
This is sweet, sentimental filmmaking of the old school, but it’s too sincere to get sticky. If “nice” isn’t the kind of adjective to put you off a movie, you’ll probably enjoy Brooklyn, even if you’re occasionally aware of its masterful manipulations. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 24, 2015
Ronan is Brooklyn's linchpin, and its saving grace. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianJeff BakerNov 19, 2015
All involved bring a warm eccentricity that lifts what in lesser hands could be a collection of cliches about the contrasts between the Old World and the New. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 9, 2015
Ronan, who’s made a habit of giving us sparkling turns since she was a kid in 2007’s Atonement, delivers a dazzlingly mature performance. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 25, 2015
This being a period drama, all the expected visual grandeur is present and accounted for, from Yves Belanger's vibrant cinematography to Odile Dicks-Mireaux's period-authentic costumes to Francois Seguin's production design. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 4, 2015
Brooklyn doesn’t quite capture Brooklyn, but its ambivalence about being Irish is gloriously epic. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Nov 4, 2015
Gradually the film turns its very specific story of one immigrant into a moving group portrait. Read full review
80
EmpireAngie ErrigoNov 2, 2015
Unashamedly romantic and achieved with a beautifully subtle, old-fashioned elegance, it’s a graceful coming-of-age tale ripe for awards. Read full review
80
CineVueTom GrahamSep 16, 2015
The casting is perfect and the acting uniformly superb. For all its lack of depth, the script is sharp, zippy and only occasionally hokey. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 14, 2015
The star of Brooklyn is Fiona Weir – not a person who appears on screen at any stage, but the woman who cast it. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 31, 2015
Without Ronan’s performance, Brooklyn might have left a sugary taste. But she is the ingredient that brings everything together: her calm poise anchors almost every scene and every shot. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 24, 2015
Crowley wisely keeps Ronan center stage and often in close-up. She lets us feel the pain of leave-takings, the depression of homesickness in that pre-digital age, the dilemma of first love, and maybe second love, overlapping, the pull of the familiar vs. the hope of the new and different. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithNov 4, 2015
It’s the sweet sincerity of Brooklyn that stamps it as both refreshing and nostalgic. The film is as welcome as a photo you just discovered of your mother before you were born, in which she looks prettier than you ever imagined. Read full review
70
Screen DailyAnthony KaufmanJun 15, 2015
Brooklyn balances its melodramatic leanings with several light touches. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 31, 2015
A robust romantic drama, rich in history and full of emotion, Brooklyn fills a niche in which the studios once specialized, using a well-read and respected novel as the grounds for a tenderly observed tearjerker. Read full review
67
IndieWireSterlin JohnsonJan 31, 2015
Brooklyn showcases a number of appealing ingredients, but ultimately lacks an adequate story to prop them up. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianOct 8, 2015
The allure of the road not taken and Saoirse Ronan's performance exert a powerful pull. Read full review
40
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 11, 2015
The simplifications and sanitizations of Brooklyn would be only dreary if they merely served the purpose of a streamlined and simplified story-telling mechanism. What renders them odious is the ethos that they embody, the worldview that they package. Read full review
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