Never Look Away
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: January 25, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayFeb 16, 2019
The title of Never Look Away is deliciously ironic: This is one of the most mesmerizing, compulsively watchable films in theaters right now. Read full review
92
The AtlanticChristopher OrrJan 29, 2019
The film more than earns its commanding title: You will not want to look away. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 7, 2019
Never Look Away makes an eloquent case for art as an expression of hope, a way of searching for meaning in chaos. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyNov 30, 2018
At a daunting 188 minutes long, Never Look Away takes its time, doesn't force its themes. Like one of those novels that follows a family through multiple generations, Never Look Away follows Kurt from Dresden, to Düsseldorf, to Berlin. Read full review
85
Film Journal InternationalDoris ToumarkineNov 29, 2018
Never Look Away, a cohesively integrated collage of many genres (history, war, crime, medical drama with romance and spectacle), is also a feast of fine acting and magnificent visuals. But with so much going on, viewers, as if confronting impressionistic paintings or pixel-based photorealistic portraitures, need to step away to get a better picture. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeJul 7, 2019
While the direction may be deceptively unfussy, Deschanel does brilliant work bringing Kurt’s worldview to life, enabling us to understand his progress towards an artistic breakthrough, represented here by paintings conjured by (among others) Richter’s former assistant Andreas Schön. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 24, 2019
Lit with a poet’s eye by Deschanel and given dramatic heft by von Donnersmarck, Never Look Away lunges at the primitive forces that define our lives. Even when it trips up, it’s never less than exhilarating. Read full review
80
Screen DailyDemetrios MatheouNov 29, 2018
Never Look Away is an often moving, thoughtful drama about the correlations between personal experience, politics and art. Read full review
80
TheWrapSteve PondNov 29, 2018
In the end, Donnersmarck has it both ways: He’s sentimental and he’s provocative, a craftsman who has something to say and it going to take his time saying it. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 29, 2018
The lines between good and evil are clearly demarcated at the outset and remain more or less fixed as the story progresses, a strategy that in no way compromises the filmmaker’s ability to mine fresh complications and surprises from his story. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 22, 2019
The writer-director has made a personal work of emotion and power, but with an indulgently slow, patience-shredding pace. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckFeb 13, 2019
The final moments are unexpected, and perhaps frustrating. But the title comes back to you. This film may leave you exhausted but also somewhat dazzled. It’s best not to look away. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonFeb 12, 2019
Pleasing, it is. Good, solid stuff. But one wonders how much better the film would have been had von Donnersmarck honestly explored the life of his inspiration, artist Gerhard Richter, rather than the fictional “Kurt Barnert.” Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedJan 29, 2019
See it and prepare to be stunned and exhausted at the same time. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneFeb 4, 2019
Stately rather than stealthy, is no match for it, but you are borne along, nonetheless, by the clash of characters, and by the ironies of historical momentum. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJan 24, 2019
Never Look Away bristles with half-formed thoughts and almost-heady insights, and hums with an ambition that is exasperating and exhilarating in equal measure. Read full review
70
VarietyJessica KiangNov 29, 2018
One of the subtler strengths of Never Look Away is the canny evocation of a war-weary, defeated population who did not experience communism as a revolution but a substitution. The insignia and the catechisms changed, but the underlying attitudes remained grotesquely similar in their callous prioritization of dogma over decency. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenFeb 20, 2019
Never Look Away seems as self-satisfied with itself as its fictional artists are with the works they produce. Pardon my disgruntlement, but after three hours, my tendency is to desire a more resounding ending and something less solipsistic. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerJul 5, 2019
If Never Look Away is no The Lives Of Others, it is also a cut above The Tourist. A strongly crafted, ambitious, occasionally absorbing dissection of a fascinating period in German culture, it is perhaps too middle-brow and broad for its own good. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJan 24, 2019
A sumptuous romantic epic that's too polished for its own good. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijNov 29, 2018
The work’s considerations of the intimate connection among being, art and life finally feel quite superficial. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJan 22, 2019
We watch as the film moves from year to year, the characters sometimes disappearing illogically, with Kurt forever at work on one unsatisfying project or another, until he finally finds a subject that speaks only to him. The movie’s German title — Werk Ohne Autor, which means Work Without Author — seems almost too apt. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichDec 3, 2018
In emphasizing how art allows us to make sense of the past, and consecrate even the most banal of sins, Von Donnersmarck loses his grip on the emotional payoff of the present. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 13, 2019
Above all, it’s a meditation on art and creativity that’s by turns earnest, troubled, sentimental, and middlebrow. It’s a big, glossy affair that somehow feels rather small. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFeb 4, 2019
The actors are good, but their lovemaking has no raw edges, no messiness. Deschanel lights them like sculptures — art objects — while Richter saws away to serenade their transcendent oneness. It’s Middlebrow Realism, comrades. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorNov 29, 2018
As Kurt finds his true art in the West, thanks to the help of a fictional version of Joseph Beuys, the film turns gripping, but it ultimately reduces art appreciation to the autobiographical. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 26, 2019
Never Look Away is not without ambition and reach, and there is a real storytelling impulse. But the central performance of Schilling looks shruggingly uncertain, as if he is bemused by what is going on. Read full review
38
Slant MagazinePat BrownJan 24, 2019
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film prioritizes the sentimental over the true, the tidy moral over the messy reality. Read full review
More From This Movie

68 Critic Reviews

7.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL