The Report
Amazon Studios | Release Date: November 15, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyOwen GleibermanFeb 2, 2019
Burns, by trusting the audience, has created a darkly authentic political thriller that does exactly what a movie like this one should do. It leaves you chastened and inspired. Read full review
91
UproxxVince ManciniFeb 13, 2019
The Report has just enough humor and absurdity and Adam Driver to cut through its justified righteous indignation. It doesn’t sacrifice importance for entertainment, or vice versa. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinFeb 2, 2019
Audaciously cerebral and unabashedly granular, writer-director Scott Z. Burns' political thriller The Report, a dramatization of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's 2014 probe into the CIA's use of torture in the wake of 9/11, is practically pornography for policy wonks. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayNov 11, 2019
The actor’s (Driver) performance isn’t just gripping; it’s inspiring. He’s not just portraying Jones; he’s embodying an ideal. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichFeb 2, 2019
The coolheaded patience of Burns’ approach is precisely what makes “The Report” so powerful in the end, not only as a lucid crystallization of our country’s recent political history, but also as an urgent reminder of how a world that prioritizes emotions over ethics will eat itself alive. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlan NgNov 22, 2019
It has to be said that the best thing about The Report is Adam Driver and Annette Benning. Read full review
80
Total FilmNeil SmithNov 15, 2019
“You did well!” Bening tells Driver. Writer/director Burns deserves the same praise, and more besides. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarNov 14, 2019
Calibrated with rare edge-of-your-seat pragmatism, Scott Z. Burns’ must-see procedural The Report diligently abides by the logical proposition that no end justifies premeditated immoral means as it scrutinizes how the CIA succumbed to post-9/11 paranoia and authorized sadistic abuses in the name of freedom. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 13, 2019
Guided by the fierce, fully committed performances of Driver and Bening,The Report is a bristling reminder that truth still matters. Naïve? Maybe. But, damn, do we need it now. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerNov 11, 2019
An urgent rebuke to a country losing its conscience, The Report is rigorous but riveting. And Adam Driver — once again — emerges as one of the most watchable actors working today. Read full review
80
Screen DailyAnthony KaufmanFeb 2, 2019
It’s intelligent and clever scripting, and except for a few moments where the dialogue is overly expository, as if Burns doesn’t trust his audience, The Report pulls back the curtain on America’s political machinations and one of its most appalling policy decisions and attempted cover-ups with startling clarity. Read full review
80
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 2, 2019
The Report is an angry, urgent film that rarely raises its voice, smartly conveying inhumanity and injustice without unnecessary drama. I found it thrilling. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 18, 2019
It’s a smart, solid and engrossing paper-chase investigative story about one man’s dogged determination to shed light on the government-sanctioned, post-9/11 torture tactics used by American interrogators on foreign soil. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 12, 2019
This is interesting, at least reasonably. But to a large extent, how you perceive the film will have much to do with how you see the story as relating to today’s headlines. Read full review
75
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodFeb 2, 2019
There is drama in the source material for sure, but maybe a little more style could have helped elevate this moment in history for the masses. Read full review
75
The Film StageJordan RaupFeb 2, 2019
While Burns is certainly damning of the forces that let these tactics be utilized, the message of the film is ultimately more about coming clean as a nation for one’s mistakes and the oversight needed between branches to have a government of integrity. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 16, 2019
It’s a dry, arm’s-length movie that seeps into your blood as it seeps into Jones’s. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 2, 2019
The Report parcels out its intel efficiently enough, though it creaks a bit more than it crackles. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 13, 2019
Although it’s no doubt intentional that Driver plays Jones as tireless and single-minded, the overall narrative of The Report might have been helped by more character-building. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Elianna LevNov 19, 2019
Those yearning for aesthetic verve had better look elsewhere; much of The Report takes place inside cold, concrete government buildings. The occasional backdrop of mahogany wood panelling is the closest to warmth you’ll experience in two hours. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckNov 14, 2019
The issues it addresses are, to say the least, crucial ones, and even though it trusts its audience to trudge through some dense material, the audience should repay that trust. Here’s hoping it will. Read full review
61
TheWrapRobert AbeleNov 14, 2019
There’s no denying that Driver — with film after film cementing his status as a top-tier actor — is excellent at exasperated outrage, but it’s not enough emotion to save The Report from feeling like a handsomely mounted, expertly researched op-ed. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 18, 2019
The Report has purpose and grip, as does any film that carries the stamp of Adam Driver. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 15, 2019
The Report is a cool, dry look at the facts. Read full review
58
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerNov 15, 2019
While the film’s intentions are noble, and its story worth retelling, it struggles throughout to lend a lasting weight to its straightforward plotting. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireNov 15, 2019
The Report is also surprisingly free of tension, given the subject matter; if you’re going to experience any anxiety, it’ll probably come from a sense of worry over whether all of this is going to be on the final exam. Read full review
50
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisNov 14, 2019
However crucial and opportune in its truth-seeking and depictions of political trickery (Burns could hardly have known his film would plop into theaters alongside the impeachment hearings for President Trump), The Report is too often dramatically frozen, its emotions stubbornly internal. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyNov 13, 2019
It’s never a good sign when the most dramatic scene in a movie owes its power to C-SPAN footage. That’s the case with The Report. Read full review
50
New York PostSara StewartNov 12, 2019
The Report, true to its no-nonsense name, does the admirable work of trying to interest viewers in the way that bureaucracy can be used to hide the most terrible truths. Alas, the movie gets as buried in paper-pushing as its characters do. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanNov 11, 2019
This may be the world’s first movie micro-targeted to several thousand of the people who live and/or work in Washington, and no one else. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichNov 9, 2019
In the end, it can’t help but sentimentalize the better angels that supposedly reside in the land of liberty’s flawed human fabric. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghNov 21, 2019
The report is important. Its findings and the attempts to undermine them and the investigators, shouldn’t be forgotten. That The Report tries to keep these lessons in a fickle public’s consciousness is a good thing. If only anything committed to screen here were memorable. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfFeb 19, 2019
There are occasional visual flourishes — a nightmarish PowerPoint presentation ending with a slide about mock burials — that hint at the better-balanced film The Report might have been. But mainly we’re pinned down by a firehose-stream of didactic outrage. Read full review
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