The Good Liar
Warner Bros. | Release Date: November 15, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 7, 2019
This movie rattles along with terrific energy and dash and the flashback sequences show that it’s actually far more daring and ambitious that you might expect. It’s a great duel between McKellen and Mirren. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanNov 7, 2019
The pleasure of The Good Liar, and it’s a major one, is the chance to watch Mirren and McKellen act together in a cat-and-mouse duet that turns into an elegant waltz of affection and deception. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedNov 18, 2019
Together, they redefine rapture. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 14, 2019
As a movie, The Good Liar is just so-so, but as a master class in performance and star quality, it’s a pleasure. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiNov 14, 2019
A taut thriller, The Good Liar keeps you guessing ’til its explosive end. Director Bill Condon’s film is based on the novel by Nicholas Searle, and builds much in the same way a book does. You gotta get through the first 30 pages to become fully absorbed. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 12, 2019
The back and forth, the listening and reacting between Mirren and McKellen, as each of their characters gauges the other and as we mark the incremental shifts and exchanges of power, is pure pleasure. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 14, 2019
Perhaps the biggest bit of fakery involved is that for all its twistiness, The Good Liar’s plot, which can be more than a little frustrating, is as much of a liability as a benefit in a production where the characters turn out to be more involving than their story. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovNov 16, 2019
The Good Liar is a pleasantly playful thriller hiding a seriously shady history close to its benighted heart. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichNov 7, 2019
Pleasant and preposterous in almost precisely equal measure, the film never offers anything less than two all-time British actors having the time of their lives, which makes it hard to get frustrated that it seldom offers anything more. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJake CoyleNov 20, 2019
The Good Liar is a kind of film one wants to love. Such old-fashioned genre movies, let alone those starring actors in their 70s and 80s, are hard to find these days. But in trying to take a simple crime set-up and stretch it into a more sweeping tale of vengeance and victimhood, The Good Liar has to make some fairly preposterous moves to get there, and it doesn’t do a very good job of cloaking them. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiNov 15, 2019
As a whole, The Good Liar is not quite good enough to deserve the comparisons to the works of Alfred Hitchcock it's clearly aiming for, though it is just good enough to suggest what Hitchcock himself might have done with it on a second pass. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshNov 14, 2019
The Good Liar takes its sweet time to pick up steam and pulls its punches in places where it could have been even darker and more daring. Erring on the side of caution isn’t exactly the approach one should take when it comes to suspense thrillers. Read full review
63
Slant MagazinePat BrownNov 14, 2019
An airport novel of a movie, Bill Condon’s The Good Liar is efficient and consumable, if a bit hollow. Read full review
63
Washington PostHau ChuNov 13, 2019
A silly breeze of a movie starring two of Britain’s finest actors, each having a blast playing cat-and-mouse with the other. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 12, 2019
A con-artist movie that is something of a con itself. Read full review
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