The Guilty
Netflix | Release Date: September 24, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
15
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Original-CinKim HughesSep 27, 2021
Rarely do remakes capture the lightning in the bottle of the source material. But The Guilty does, no doubt in part because screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto, best known for the True Detective series, drafted Gustav Möller, who wrote the original screenplay for and directed the original. Whether a remake was needed remains debatable, but the vision remains intact. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 11, 2021
What makes The Guilty good is the way it tacitly communicates so much about the character without ever having to speak his issues out loud. Read full review
80
EmpireAmon WarmannOct 1, 2021
Gyllenhaal flexes all his considerable acting muscles in this taut, tense thriller. One of the better remakes you’ll see. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 30, 2021
Gyllenhaal’s Baylor is a man on the edge of time, reckoning with a deed he can’t take back and a possible future built on lies. Few actors can put this kind of raw yet strangely companionable self-loathing onscreen—and make you glad you didn’t avert your eyes, no matter how much you wanted to. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisSep 30, 2021
Essentially a one-man show, The Guilty necessarily vibrates to the rhythms of its lead. Read full review
80
Time OutStephen A. RussellSep 29, 2021
If director Antoine Fuqua thoroughly flubbed his remake of The Equalizer, he properly sticks the landing here. Seizing you from the outset, The Guilty refuses to let go until you’re gasping for breath. Read full review
80
UproxxMike RyanSep 12, 2021
This is Jake Gyllenhaal’s show. Read full review
79
TheWrapSteve PondSep 10, 2021
Fuqua, like Möller before him, doesn’t really give you time to sit back and think about it. The Guilty stays in one place but moves like a tough, efficient action flick; it’s a thrill ride in an office chair. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonSep 27, 2021
So while Fuqua’s The Guilty is not much different from the original, his direction is crisp, Gyllenhaal’s performance grows on you and Riley Keough (Zola), as the voice of the woman who is abducted, is terrific. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrSep 22, 2021
Gyllenhaal is absolutely commanding throughout the lean 91-minute runtime, a compelling ball of stress, anxiety and frustration working only with computer screens, phones and disembodied voices. It is no understatement that the success of The Guilty rests entirely on his shoulders. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Sarah-Tai BlackSep 13, 2021
Fuqua is reliable in his continued ability to craft tense and measured films for broad audiences looking for complicated tales of morality. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 12, 2021
Jake Gyllenhaal delivers as one would expect, proving again that he’s one of the most consistent actors alive. Read full review
75
IndieWireKate ErblandSep 10, 2021
If you’ve seen Moller’s The Guilty, well, you’ve basically seen Fuqua’s, but Gyllenhaal’s performance adds a go-for-broke turn that capitalizes on the actor’s deep emotional reserves. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJessica KiangSep 23, 2021
Perhaps the highest praise we can lavish on Fuqua’s solid, enjoyable, easily watchable remake, is that beyond the addition of Gyllenhaal, it doesn’t try to fix anything that wasn’t broken in the first place. Read full review
70
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaSep 14, 2021
Its efforts at social commentary mostly fall flat, but its thrilling moments and Gyllenhaal’s intense performance largely make up for that. Read full review
70
Film ThreatAndy HowellSep 14, 2021
The Guilty manages to keep things interesting with a propulsive plot. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 13, 2021
For most of its brisk 90 minutes, The Guilty is just Gyllenhaal, in tight close-up, constructing a movie out of sweat and tears alone: a glorified radio play of a thriller whose thrills are generated almost entirely through his reactions. Read full review
65
CNNBrian LowrySep 23, 2021
The Guilty is a taut, remarkably spare thriller. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 1, 2021
The ground covered is a tad overfamiliar, Gyllenhaal’s reactions predictably over the top and even the tropes of the genre (“real time”) can seem unsurprising and overplayed. But Fuqua makes every minute of screen time count, maintaining the suspense and claustrophobia even in those stretches where he takes the foot off the gas. Read full review
61
PolygonJesse HassengerOct 1, 2021
Gyllenhaal is the whole show, and his irritable, driven, struggling character doesn’t exactly glorify his line of work. His unpleasantness gives the movie its edge, and perhaps also an unearned sense of gravitas. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 1, 2021
It was Gyllenhaal, here in a producer role, who initially bought the rights to Gustav Möller’s Danish film. You could call this a vanity project, but at least his presence adds a dose of originality to this carbon copy remake. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsSep 28, 2021
Even with its familiar visual and dramatic approach — the extent to which we are firmly, subjectively pushed into Joseph’s world and made to tumble around for a while amid his unpredictable behaviors — the movie packs an odd little punch. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 10, 2021
A claustrophobic thriller about a disgraced cop trying to undo his past mistakes over the course of one supremely stressful night, The Guilty boasts a clever close-quarters conceit that ends up feeling more like an actorly exercise than a gripping human drama. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 10, 2021
Gyllenhaal’s impressive, but The Guilty almost certainly would have been more effective if he’d dialed down the intensity a bit. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 10, 2021
Perhaps to overcompensate for the lack of conventionally opened-out dramatic action, there is some big closeup acting from Gyllenhaal, but it’s a well-made and watchable picture of a man in the secular confessional box, a sinner forced to occupy the place of a priest. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 13, 2021
Guilty, for all its wild-eyed excess, does find some blunt-force propulsion for a while, particularly if you're coming to it new. But the movie seems to mistake the taut minimalism of the original for something that needs to be goosed and adrenalized, a thriller on constant defibrillator. Read full review
56
CNETRichard TrenholmOct 8, 2021
Based on a nerve-shredding Danish thriller, this US remake loses something in the translation. Read full review
55
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSep 10, 2021
As a showcase for Gyllenhaal's talents, The Guilty is passable, but that's just not enough. Read full review
50
Screen RantFerdosa AbdiSep 30, 2021
Without offering anything particularly interesting or nuanced, The Guilty still has enough to keep audiences engaged and on the edge of their seats. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleSep 29, 2021
Ultimately, The Guilty is a worthwhile remake, even if it fails to perfectly calibrate performance and production. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 28, 2021
For its eventual lurid machinations and hyped-up emotionalism, the film winds up being a handsomely efficient one-man show. Like the man Gyllenhaal so convincingly embodies, it gets the job done, even if it inevitably goes over the top. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 27, 2021
The Guilty wants to make a statement about a man who’s trying to save himself through saving others, but the message is delivered with all the subtlety of a frantic 911 call. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneySep 27, 2021
The Guilty gets less and less plausible, not least of all in how neatly it ties together various plot elements. For its first 40 minutes or so, the movie shows how much Gyllenhaal and Fuqua can do with little. Confinement becomes a dramatic launching pad. Then melodrama kicks in, and what had been a gripping offbeat thriller becomes a morality tale (including a truly shameless plot twist). Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 13, 2021
This is an engaging, no-frills entertainment that still fails to justify its reason for being. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 30, 2021
While Gyllenhaal thrusts himself into the role with energy, you can sense his awareness that his acting has to carry the whole shebang, like a chef in the kitchen doing every last job. He’s entertaining, but guilty, like The Guilty, of throwing nuance in the bin. Read full review
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