Official Secrets
IFC Films | Release Date: August 30, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
ObserverOliver JonesAug 29, 2019
The story Hood’s film tells is a vital one to revisit, not just because the deceptions it illuminates inform so much of the political and international morass affecting our daily lives, but also shows the power of a single act of moral courage, and it does so while being blisteringly entertaining cinema. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 29, 2019
Bloody hell, the Brits do low-key, paranoid procedural dramas like Official Secrets well, with a pervading chill and no flash: The crispness cuts like a knife. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 28, 2019
A model of professionalism and energy, Official Secrets moves along at a brisk clip. It’s paced like a police procedural, but it focuses not on an investigator but rather a moral exemplar who takes a principled stand in defiance of the price that has to be paid. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 1, 2019
Director Gavin Hood gives the proceedings a rousing electricity, and he’s aided by a cast which leans into the story’s urgency and continued relevance. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldSep 11, 2019
It’s a good story, well told, though you have to forgive Hood for indulging in a little journalistic cliché. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerSep 10, 2019
While Rhys Ifans chews scenery as a scruff-faced foreign correspondent, Knightley plays it taut and believable, and, as we know, nobody walks on cobblestones better than she. The end result is a professionally made film that is whistle-blowingly relevant, starring an excellent actress who successfully comes in from her Pride & Prejudice past. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 4, 2019
Although Knightley’s Gun often seems to be a passive figure, buffeted by the machinations of those around her, the film’s honesty about the enormous personal costs of whistleblowing is a welcome relief from more romanticized heroics. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 28, 2019
And even as the narrative goes through its sometimes sermonizing paces, it’s hard not to be moved by the singular passion of a woman who effectively dismantled her own life not just to salve her conscience, but to save the soul of a nation. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 28, 2019
To date, "The Insider" probably represents the most compelling whistleblower story to make it to the big screen and, although the subject matter is different, Official Secrets generates in the viewer the same sense of outrage. Read full review
70
Film ThreatLorry KiktaSep 1, 2019
Official Secrets is an incredibly smart film that celebrates the whistleblowers of the world. It also shows the occasional futility in these efforts as well. It illustrates the all-powerful machine that is government and how that machine can destroy whoever it wants pretty damn easily. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonAug 29, 2019
As played by Keira Knightley, Katharine is sympathetic, as is the cause of an unabashedly political movie that is, essentially, a procedural, but also a very sophisticated, ornate, complex and convincing thriller. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 1, 2019
Hood (Eye in the Sky), his co-screenwriters Sara and Gregory Bernstein and a seasoned ensemble of Brit stage and screen pros deliver a straightforward, solidly old-fashioned slice of real-life espionage, journalistic and legal intrigue that gets the job done in engrossing, clear-eyed fashion even if it lacks much in the way of stylistic verve. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisSep 4, 2019
Though the third act ends surprisingly, if not anticlimactically – truth is indeed stranger than fiction – the film can’t resist one final finger wag, this time from the esteemed barrister (a likable Fiennes) who brilliantly mounts Gun’s legal defense by barely raising that finger. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloAug 28, 2019
Things perk up when Fiennes belatedly appears, and while this isn’t one of the performances he’ll be remembered for, by any means, he delivers a fine moment of utter disgust at the government’s naked corruption in the film’s very last scene. Ending on that note feels right. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 12, 2019
While Gun’s story is certainly worth telling and this is a well-intentioned, solid film with fine work from Knightley, Official Secrets is too heavy-handed and drab, and falls far short of procedural thrillers such as “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight” and “The Post” or broadly entertaining whistleblower stories such as “Erin Brockovich.” Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 4, 2019
It’s an occasionally plodding but rarely dull movie, and one whose stakes outweigh its impact as drama. In the end, the message is both illuminating and disturbing. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 28, 2019
Official Secrets, despite its blasé title, despite the fact that this “true” story isn’t on a LeCarre level, in spite of its paucity of dramatic outbursts, is still a most engrossing history reminder. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenAug 19, 2019
Gavin Hood wrings suspense out of the parsing of the nuances of evidence and the tapping of mysterious contacts. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerOct 14, 2019
Official Secrets is a timely, ambitious if broad take on a complex subject, but remains engaging and entertaining. anchored by Keira Knightley on great form. Read full review
60
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 28, 2019
Official Secrets remains a compelling tale of injustice on an individual and global level. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been told better, but give it points for being told at all. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 1, 2019
Official Secrets is a well-intentioned retelling of a daunting act of courage and as a vehicle for informing more people of who Katharine Gun is, it’s effective, carefully laying out the incremental stakes as well as her noble intentions. Credit for this however lies almost solely with Knightley. Read full review
60
VarietyAmy NicholsonFeb 1, 2019
The crux of Gun’s struggle is that she risked everything to tell the truth, and the war happened anyway. Ultimately, her personal story was neither uplifting, nor tragic, which means the film surrounding her doesn’t hurtle toward a satisfying arc. Read full review
58
IndieWireJude DryAug 31, 2019
Like its heroine, Official Secrets is shouting into an echo chamber. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyAug 30, 2019
Along the way there’s a scene of a secret meeting in a parking garage that’s more realistic, maybe, than the shadowy one in “All The President’s Men,” but not nearly as gripping. This problem persists throughout. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 28, 2019
The director Gavin Hood, who wrote the script with Sara Bernstein and Gregory Bernstein, fits the pieces together coherently, no small thing given the complications. But the characters are malnourished and Hood’s attempts to build suspense often fall flat because he leans hard on genre conventions, on dark shadows, ominous music and abrupt sounds straight from a horror flick. Read full review
50
TheWrapRobert AbeleAug 27, 2019
A capably rendered, urgently argued portrait in courage that never quite rises above curious-footnote status. Read full review
50
The Film StageDan MeccaFeb 5, 2019
The story inside Official Secrets is one worth telling, but perhaps it would be better to read the book. Read full review
38
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 27, 2019
Ralph Fiennes as Gun’s eventual lawyer, however, is totally forgettable, as is much of the standard-issue, self-important docudrama. So much of Gregory Bernstein, Sara Bernstein and Gavin Hood’s screenplay arrives with a thud that it might’ve been written with clenched fists. Knightley’s overwrought performance doesn’t help either. Read full review
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