Citizenfour
RADiUS-TWC | Release Date: October 24, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsNov 27, 2014
The message of the movie is as clear as Siberian ice: Whether you’re a Tea Partier, an Occupier or just an ordinary Joe, you might be the next citizen who’s stranded in limbo. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyNov 6, 2014
The documentary of the year may also be its most hair-raising thriller. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 31, 2014
Citzenfour is prosaic in its presentation and profoundly chilling in its details, and if you think Snowden is a traitor, you should probably see it. If you think he’s a hero, you should probably see it. If you haven’t made up your mind — well, you get the idea. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonOct 23, 2014
There are not a lot of moments in documentary cinema that equal Citizenfour. Ms. Poitras was already at work on a film about government surveillance when Mr. Snowden presented himself, and she’s something of a lightning rod, too, one with little evident sympathy for Obama administration data mining. Read full review
100
The PlaylistDrew TaylorOct 23, 2014
This is a movie primarily concerned with numbers and the way that information is fed, processed, and acted upon. But it plays like the greatest paranoid thriller since "All the President's Men." Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireOct 23, 2014
Though superlatives can mischaracterize any movie’s qualities, it is not an overstatement, I think, to call Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ film about Edward Snowden, the movie of the century (to date). Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleThomas LeeOct 23, 2014
And there lies the greatest flaw with Citzenfour and Snowden himself. Despite the film’s virtues, we’re no closer to understanding Snowden than we were a year ago when this saga began. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 23, 2014
Cinema, even in the service of journalism, is always more than reporting, and focusing on what Ms. Poitras’s film is about risks ignoring what it is. It’s a tense and frightening thriller that blends the brisk globe-trotting of the “Bourne” movies with the spooky, atmospheric effects of a Japanese horror film. And it is also a primal political fable for the digital age, a real-time tableau of the confrontation between the individual and the state. Read full review
100
HitfixMatt PatchesOct 20, 2014
CITIZENFOUR is an expertly crafted expose with unprecedented urgency. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 13, 2014
Citizenfour is a gripping record of how our rulers are addicted to gaining more and more power and control over us – if we let them. Read full review
100
VarietyRonnie ScheibOct 13, 2014
Adapting the cold language of data encryption to recount a dramatic saga of abuse of power and justified paranoia, Poitras brilliantly demonstrates that information is a weapon that cuts both ways. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianJeff BakerNov 7, 2014
Poitras' footage of what happened in Hong Kong is at the heart of Citizenfour, her new movie, and it is enthralling, a rare look at a crucial historical event as it happened. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 24, 2014
The larger point in Citizenfour is that dictatorships have always relied on the massive gathering of information in order to control their populations. In this brave new cyber world, it is all too easy for democracies to cross the line, too. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubDavid EhrlichOct 22, 2014
Citizenfour offers a remarkably intimate look at history as it happened. In fact, the immediacy of Poitras’ film is so remarkable that, at least for the immediate future, her craft is likely to be overshadowed by her access, her storytelling overshadowed by her opportunity. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnOct 13, 2014
Poitras, an expert filmmaker as keyed into pace and mood as the topic they support, delivers a mesmerizing look at both how Snowden managed to release his information as well as why it all matters. Read full review
90
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeOct 26, 2014
Citizenfour finds its strength in both the story and the telling: The information about government spying is chilling, of course, but the movie also gives us the opportunity to get to know the elusive Snowden. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirOct 15, 2014
Citizenfour is both an urgent tale torn from recent headlines and a compelling work of cinema, with all the paranoid density and abrupt changes of scenery of a John le Carré novel. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyOct 13, 2014
No matter one's personal stance about what Snowden did, this revelatory work is fascinating and thought-provoking, if, at the same time, oddly lacking in tension; unlike the provocations of Michael Moore or Oliver Stone, the temperature of this film is very cool. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovNov 5, 2014
Citizenfour is obviously in Snowden’s corner, but as an example of pure cinema vérité, this is the finest – and most disturbing – political documentary since Alex Gibney’s Oscar-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side." Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigNov 13, 2014
The year's most riveting documentary. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesBill StametsOct 30, 2014
This thoughtful film is designed with taste. Music is minimal. Cuing a little Nine Inch Nails at the end, Poitras enables “citizenfour” to commit an act of reverse surveillance on the NSA. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 30, 2014
The film works, whatever your ethical stance on Snowden, because it's more procedural than polemic. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 24, 2014
It's a wow of a thriller with a soul that isn't computer generated. Poitras may be guilty of taking Snowden at face value, but she succeeds brilliantly in evoking a shadow villain intent on world domination. Big Brother is back, baby, and he's gone digital. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 23, 2014
Citizenfour isn’t just a useful primer in the civil liberties and consent issues his disclosures raised. It humanizes a man who almost immediately became controversialized as a naive, self-important desk jockey or, worse, a handmaiden to terrorists everywhere. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianOct 13, 2014
Laura Poitras teaches by example, providing a privileged insight into Edward Snowden's personality and motivation while keeping the focus on government spying. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyJoe McGovernOct 22, 2014
For all its brio, the film is overcautious about pointing fingers. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 30, 2014
The story Snowden tells is, of course, absorbing, disturbing and, yes, scary. Poitras' film, playing out as more and more is revealed, reported and published, comes off like a real-life spy thriller. Read full review
80
EmpireSimon CrookOct 27, 2014
Bold, unblinking filmmaking – no less than a living document of a global scandal straight from the whistleblower. Alarming and essential – anyone with a phone should see it. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyOct 23, 2014
Poitras sets the saga on a low simmer, while the Social Network-like score throbs away. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanOct 22, 2014
So is he a martyred patriot or a misguided traitor? And is it possible he’s both? Poitras comes down firmly on one side, and she makes a strong case. But the movie would have been stronger still if she’d acknowledged the alternative view. Read full review
80
The DissolveScott TobiasOct 22, 2014
Poitras fashions Citizenfour into a spy thriller whose intrigues bleed into everyday life. She doesn’t want the audience to feel like Snowden’s revelations are limited to him and potential enemies of the state—or even to activist journalists like her and Greenwald. She makes the threat feel as pervasive as they believe it to be. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 21, 2014
The hotel scenes go on a tad long, but what holds us is that we’re right in the room as history is being made — with the guy, the actual guy, soon to be notorious all over the world. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlOct 21, 2014
Poitras shows us history as it happens, scenes of such intimate momentousness that the movie's a must-see piece of work even if, in its totality, it's underwhelming as argument or cinema. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounOct 20, 2014
Citizenfour is at its most eye-opening and essential simply as a portrait of the then 29-year-old Snowden at a point of absolute no-return in his life as he spends almost a week hiding out in Hong Kong before disappearing into an entirely new existence. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezNov 20, 2014
Using a buzzy, unnerving score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Citizenfour makes you share the same sense of shock and paranoia as Snowden spews damning information that implicates the White House in transgressions that extend beyond our borders into other countries. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 23, 2014
Citizenfour is a formidable viewing experience, but it's not necessarily a problem-free film. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandOct 31, 2014
This is a complicated story, but it's efficiently laid out by Poitras in this smartly edited project. She has posed Citizenfour as the final piece of a post-9/11 trilogy that began with "My Country, My Country" (about the 2006 elections in Iran) and "The Oath" (about Guantanamo). Read full review
60
Total FilmEmma MorganJan 9, 2015
Snowden proves surprisingly sympathetic. His intentions appear to have no subtext, but sadly neither does the doc; the irony of an infodump approach to mass surveillance goes disappointingly unexploited. Read full review
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