Passing
Netflix | Release Date: October 27, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
42
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonNov 12, 2021
It might have taken one actress to make a movie so reliant on others. It certainly took a director with a supreme confidence, not just in the talents of her performers but in the power of gesture. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 11, 2021
Together with Thompson and Negga, Hall hauntingly brings to life characters forced to exist in that “not entirely friendly” space, with its cruelties, appearances, ambiguities and hard, merciless truths. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 9, 2021
A lesser director, working in a clunky-realism vein with less skilled designers and especially performers, might’ve turned Passing into a conventional something or other. In novel form, and in Hall’s beautiful adaptation, it is anything but conventional. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 25, 2021
It’s a sophisticated piece of work, slightly haunted, with an underlying sorrow that can’t be resolved or remedied. Read full review
100
Time OutDave CalhounFeb 2, 2021
The story passes from summer to winter, seasonally and tonally, and Hall’s chief allies in bringing her smart script to screen are Edu Grau’s stunning black-and-white photography (reason alone to see the film), Dev Hynes’s piano jazz score and two extraordinarily thoughtful central performances from Negga and Thompson. Read full review
100
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 1, 2021
Alive to pulse-quickening details of body language and the conversational codes by which a dangerous friendship lives or dies, the film is a study in contrasts far beyond the monochromatic. Read full review
100
VarietyJessica KiangFeb 1, 2021
This radically intimate exploration of the desperately fraught concept of “passing” — being Black but pretending to be white — ought to be too ambitious for a first-time filmmaker, but Hall’s touch is unerring, deceptively delicate, quiet and immaculate, like that final fall of snow. Read full review
96
The AtlanticShirley LiNov 11, 2021
Hall seems to have grasped the story as a performer would, prioritizing the potency of the characters’ interior lives over the plot. And perhaps given her acting background, she draws from Thompson and Negga a pair of finely tuned and exquisite performances. In every scene they share, they radiate a tender but perilous chemistry. Read full review
91
IndieWireKate ErblandFeb 1, 2021
Hall made many good choices for her debut — her entire crafts department turned in rich period production elements — but the casting of her leads might be the best of the bunch. Read full review
90
Vanity FairCassie da CostaNov 19, 2021
Much of what you see in Passing you’ll miss if you don’t really pay attention. This is, obviously, the entire idea. No matter the language we use or the identities we are assigned or take on, race is not material or fixed—it transforms and distorts. Read full review
90
VoxAlissa WilkinsonNov 19, 2021
The result is cool, elegant, and devastating, a film as tightly woven and plaintive as the source novel itself. It’s an artifact of its time, both 1929 and in 2021, when the questions around identity have morphed and shifted but are still relevant as ever. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 9, 2021
Passing is Rebecca Hall’s first feature film as a writer and director. You’d never know it. With her meticulous eye for detail, her beautiful framing of shots (in stunning black-and-white) and the wondrously moving performances she gets from her actors —to say nothing of her handling of the material (she wrote the script) — you’d think Hall had been at this for a while. Read full review
90
ABC NewsPeter TraversOct 29, 2021
Starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga in two of the year’s best performances, this mesmerizing film about race, class and gender identity in the 1920s speaks urgently to right now and marks a brilliant directing debut from Rebecca Hall. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 27, 2021
[Hall] picks up on their contrasting energies, the way Negga eagerly draws the camera’s gaze while Thompson quietly deflects it. But what’s most striking about Hall’s direction is her visual acuity, her gift for composing images that are gorgeous, disorienting and strangely intuitive. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 3, 2021
Passing is a beautifully rendered story that may be first and foremost about racial identity, though it enfolds so many ancillary reflections within its petals—on the power of longing and jealousy, and on the truth that we all make choices that define us as individuals—that anyone can respond to it. Read full review
90
Film ThreatLorry KiktaFeb 2, 2021
Hall has crafted a masterpiece of nostalgic filmmaking. Read full review
90
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 1, 2021
The muted elegance of Passing’s design proves to be a deft feint for a film full of passion and profound longing, highlighted by two controlled but devastating performances. Read full review
90
TheWrapCarlos AguilarFeb 1, 2021
For all the technique that she demonstrates in Passing, it’s the way Hall mines praiseworthy turns from her cast that will earn her the most acclaim. Mannered in varying degrees, the actresses’ performances strike a delicate balance of emotional nuance and period-specific affectations. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 1, 2021
Whether this is a one-time passion project or the beginnings of an ongoing move from acting into directing in her career focus, Hall has crafted a work that's thoughtful, provocative and emotionally resonant. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenOct 28, 2021
Passing is an impressionistic experience, much like the Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou piano piece that composer Devonté Hynes incorporates into the score, a portrait of an identity that refuses to be pinned down, for better and for worse. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 28, 2021
The movie has a magnetic quality that’s all the more welcome because of all the weighty issues forming its foundation. It’s a tremendous debut effort for Hall, whose work seems more like that of a seasoned veteran than a first-timer. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckOct 28, 2021
Rarely have the hues of black and white, cinematographically speaking, looked so beautifully lush as in Passing, the hugely impressive directorial debut of actor Rebecca Hall. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonOct 27, 2021
Hall, Grau, editor Sabine Hoffman, and composer Devonté Hynes do an excellent job of casting a hypnotic spell on the audience. This is a deliberately paced film with enveloping moods that feel like symphony movements. Read full review
83
The Film StageShayna WarnerFeb 1, 2021
By turns stifling and lucid with seduction, Hall’s debut is impressive, even when its atmosphere sometimes overtakes its pace. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 9, 2021
Passing is a drama of vision and of inner vision, of appearances and images and self-images, and Hall’s spare and reserved cinematic style serves to emphasize the inward aspect of the action, its crises of consciousness. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyNov 4, 2021
Passing is as richly felt as it is carefully conceived. Read full review
80
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsNov 2, 2021
Sometimes the filmmaking doesn’t quite do enough to elicit the requisite intensity from some key conversations, but it certainly lands its most important punch, which arrives at the devastating climax. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansOct 30, 2021
Hall emphasises the moral grey area by shooting in black and white, an ingenious choice that allows her to light Clare as black or white. Read full review
80
EmpireNikki BaughanOct 29, 2021
An impressive filmmaking debut from actor-turned-director Rebecca Hall which largely avoids cliché or soapboxing about race, featuring two excellent performances from Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeOct 29, 2021
Passing is, in some ways, a slender story. But Hall’s feel for the period and her gift for folding potent discourse into the attractive visuals kicks it up to the level of high art. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 28, 2021
There is such sensitivity and intelligence in the performances from Thompson and Negga and the cinematography from Eduard Grau and production design by Nora Mendis are both ravishing. It’s a very stylish piece of work from Hall. Read full review
80
CineVueMatthew AndersonFeb 2, 2021
An impressive, lingering debut from Hall, Passing exists as a fragile, precious, impossible reverie within a snow globe that could shatter at any moment. Read full review
80
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaFeb 1, 2021
The dreamy images and the simmering passions of the film lingered with me. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyNov 11, 2021
This is a double debut for Hall, as director and screenwriter both. She’s long been known as one of our most gifted actors. So the quality of the performances she’s gotten from her cast is little surprise. Read full review
75
CNNBrian LowryNov 10, 2021
Hall captures how the two women chafe against the system and its limitations in different ways, and shoots the film with a haunting, almost hypnotic quality. That atmosphere, in a sense, is stronger than the story, but it's more than enough to make Passing a movie that shouldn't be passed by. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 25, 2021
This is a very personal project for Rebecca Hall, whose grandfather was Black but passed for white, and she has delivered an exquisitely crafted gem. Read full review
75
ConsequenceValerie ComplexFeb 2, 2021
There just isn’t enough clarity to properly gauge what Passing is trying to say and who it’s for beyond the dazzling portraits and memorable performances. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiFeb 2, 2021
A sickened rage and psychological nuance courses through every meticulously arranged frame of the film. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRobert DanielsFeb 1, 2021
With an incredible ensemble and an elegant eye, Hall’s Passing is a high-wire act of a debut that tackles its several thorny issues with nary a scratch. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattFeb 1, 2021
It feels like an actor's film: a delicate, melancholy study in black and white, nearly every scene filled with careful silences and subtext. Read full review
68
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerOct 26, 2021
After establishing the characters with such elegance and grace, the movie proceeds to nudge them toward an endpoint that is beautifully shot but curiously chilly, lacking the catharsis of something more old-fashioned. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 27, 2021
The narrative moves toward its foregone conclusion with the low energy of a slow-moving locomotive on train tracks leading to a broken bridge. Read full review
60
Total FilmRōgan GrahamFeb 2, 2021
A visually stunning directorial debut that’s too intimidated by the original source material to be effective. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubCraig D. LindseyOct 26, 2021
As for the story itself, it often moves with a moody, morbid vagueness that makes the film seem like a Gothic ghost story, except that everyone’s alive. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 8, 2021
Passing almost passes muster by virtue of its two winning leads. If only Hall had given them fireworks to play and a world that feels more vibrant than a faded black and white photograph. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 1, 2021
As compelling and as complicated as this fraught friendship might be, Hall’s script can’t quite find a way to take it – and the other pieces of Larsen’s novel – and turn them into something deservedly substantial. Read full review
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