Dear Comrades!
Neon | Release Date (Streaming): December 25, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussFeb 25, 2021
Setting political movies in the past is an easy, usually safe way to signal virtue. But with its eerie resonances of 2021 reports from Moscow to Washington, D.C., this monochrome aesthetic object looks like something that draws real blood. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 29, 2021
In this absorbing and rigorously disciplined account, Konchalovsky proves that a healthy embrace of nuance doesn't need to result in muddled thinking. Indeed, it can lead to something sharp, bright and dazzlingly precise. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 14, 2021
It is a passionate drama of fear and rage. Read full review
100
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 8, 2021
Beautiful and damning, Dear Comrades! is also an act of remembrance. Read full review
91
The Film StageGlenn Heath Jr.Sep 13, 2020
Through its meticulous recreation of historical circumstance both personal and collective, Dear Comrades! beautifully counters these natural feelings of indifference through a blisteringly precise style of dramatic filmmaking that never shies away from revealing the fascism propping up all the propagandistic bluster. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 11, 2021
Konchalovsky has said that he meant to recapture the look of films from the ’60s, but these crisp, high-contrast images speak to another impulse as well: to look into a past shrouded in the fog of delusion and doublespeak, and to see through it with a clarity that burns and even heals Read full review
90
VarietyJessica KiangSep 12, 2020
Meticulous and majestic, epic in scope and tattoo-needle intimate in effect, this scrupulous recreation of the lead-up to and aftermath of the Novocherkassk massacre six decades ago is excoriating proof that not all filmmakers are made sloppy or slipshod by anger. Some are made ever more righteously, icily precise. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 2, 2021
The intimacy of the story and the black and white cinematography keep Dear Comrades! from crossing into “epic.” Konchalovskiy is more interested in reminding people of the violence their neighbors, soldiers, police and leaders are capable of, how drab and circumscribed life was back then. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellJan 19, 2021
Dear Comrades! works well as an historical drama, a political satire and even a cold-war thriller. It’s brilliance, however, lies in its study of the profound cognitive dissonance that comes of all totalitarian systems. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeJan 17, 2021
Throughout, Konchalovsky juxtaposes wide-ranging events with seemingly insignificant details to dramatic effect. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 12, 2020
It’s a film that understands that humour and horror are not always mutually exclusive and that even the worst moments in life carry an air of the absurd. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 12, 2020
Although at first sight this dramatization of a 1962 strike at a factory in the U.S.S.R. may seem a long way from the interests of contemporary audiences, it is surprising how much resonance the film has with the political struggles of our own time. Read full review
75
The Film StageMatt CipollaDec 31, 2020
Dear Comrades! is—to throw an overused word around—timely, but largely in how it observes the conflict between communism and socialism and how modern audiences confuse the two. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyDec 31, 2020
Dear Comrades is a fascinating, irony-steeped portrait of a soul who’s been hardened by her trauma, to the extent that she embraces its architects. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJack KingSep 12, 2020
Dear Comrades!, from veteran Russian auteur Andrei Konchalovsky, is a fascinating blend of dark satire and bleak archaeology. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnSep 12, 2020
Brimming with anger and intrigue, this fiery historical drama from a veteran Russian filmmaker revisits the tragedy with fresh immediacy, and gives it a human face. Read full review
70
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 12, 2020
The film’s magnetic centre is a strong performance from Vysotskaya, working from a base line of initial testiness to rising anxiety and terror in face of the oppression that she realises she has been enabling. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 7, 2020
It’s in its depiction of the communist party’s response to a peaceful demonstration that Andrei Konchalovsky’s latest is at its most effective. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyFeb 3, 2021
Critics are often accused of reviewing a filmmaker’s politics over the film. But the truth is that, outside of welcome stretches of humor (in the beginning) and tension (towards the end), there isn’t much more to Dear Comrades!. The script is filled with flat, rhetorical speeches that are done no favors by Konchalovsky’s static direction. Read full review
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