Universal Language
Oscilloscope Laboratories | Release Date: February 14, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 14, 2025
There is no single category that you can slot Rankin’s mix of a wink, a nudge and an embrace into, so we guess “lo-fi masterpiece” will have to do until a better option comes along. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloFeb 14, 2025
Co-written by Rankin, Nemati, and Ila Firouzabadi, “Universal Language” is delightfully absurdist, with little moments in each story that both make sense yet defy expectations. Read full review
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyFeb 6, 2025
In short, Universal Language is something of bag of mixed nuts, a Frankenfilm, a cinematic turducken, with comic non-sequiturs and sight gags linked by three narrative strands. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 25, 2024
Universal Language is a magnificent film, one that feels warm and familiar even as we realize just how startlingly original it is. Read full review
95
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 21, 2025
Universal Language is a film flooded with sorrow and spirit, discombobulating surrealism and comforting sentimentality. Read full review
91
The Film StageRory O'ConnorMay 25, 2024
Everything from the film’s humanist energies, down to the timbre of the dialogue, rings like an endearing, never-labored homage to Persian cinema. Read full review
90
Paste MagazineJim VorelFeb 14, 2025
The characters of Universal Language somehow leave you feeling better about humanity than you did before viewing it. Read full review
90
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonFeb 13, 2025
It’s a pensive meditation in an era of displacement, even if the film never tries to make a big point. The mood is palpable, and the meditation legible, even if Winnipeg and Iranian cinema are to you as remote as a chilly winter moon. Read full review
90
ColliderJason GorberSep 17, 2024
The story navigates the fine line between community pride and nationalistic zeal, providing lessons for a future while admitting to the existential futility of it all. We can shift our perspective, but every time we do, things stay pretty much the same. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleFeb 18, 2025
Rankin’s film, his second following the also surreal “Twentieth Century” (2019), is propelled less by narrative thrust than the abiding oddity of its basic construction, and the movie’s slavish devotion to seeing it through without a wink. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerFeb 12, 2025
To further dig into Rankin’s blending of the goofily left-field and the openly earnest, the message persisting through the dry punchlines is that to care for your neighbor, to care for all the oddities of home, is to care for yourself. Read full review
83
The Daily BeastNick SchagerOct 9, 2024
An off-kilter creation that feels like the wacko offspring of Aki Kaurismäki and Abbas Kiarostami’s cinemas. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 25, 2024
Universal Language is first and foremost a testament to the shared artifice of all filmic storytelling, and to the singular realities it’s able to bring alive in turn. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonFeb 14, 2025
The tone is dry and spartan — and funny, too, if you don’t mind snorting at someone whose sons died in a marshmallow-eating competition, or giggling over the sobs of a worker weeping in a cubicle for reasons that go unexplained. Read full review
80
TheWrapChase HutchinsonFeb 14, 2025
It’s a film whose magnificence sneaks up on you, delighting in plenty of clever silliness before hitting you with a succession of somber scenes that lay you flat. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerFeb 14, 2025
Rankin seems to be seeking out the universal language of cinema itself. In his own very weird way he manages to find it, turning an everyday place into something momentarily special — which is what all good movies are meant to do. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAndy HowellOct 11, 2024
The film is so gloriously absurd that we are mainly driven through the narrative by the continuous reveal of new elements in this bizarre and hilarious universe. Still, when everything does come together at the end, there are some emotional payoffs that sneak up on you like a wandering turkey. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 25, 2024
Rankin may have conceived Universal Language in the spirit of homage, but there’s something undeniably original about the end result. Don’t be surprised if that translates into a modest cult following and more creative ideas in the future. Read full review
75
Washington PostTy BurrFeb 28, 2025
It is as far from the commercial mainstream as narrative filmmaking gets, but for connoisseurs of the poetic bizarre, it has its very real enchantments. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDavid RobbSep 8, 2024
Though juxtaposing Canada’s drabness and relative lack of heritage with Iran’s millennia of unbroken tradition brings out the former aspects particularly clearly, Universal Language is aiming beyond mere satire or culture-clash playfulness. Read full review
75
The Film VerdictStephen DaltonMay 25, 2024
Blending autobiographical elements with heartfelt homages to Iranian cinema, writer-director Matthew Rankin's charmingly surreal comic fable reimagines Canada as a Farsi-speaking dreamland. Read full review
70
The New YorkerJustin ChangFeb 13, 2025
[Rankin’s] film, at its best when it expresses a sincere belief in the possibilities of human connection, can feel trapped in the margins of its conceit, short-circuited by movie love. Read full review
60
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganMay 25, 2024
You could call it whimsical. Absurdist. Contrived. Or an unexpectedly unusual concept album that doesn’t quite come off but was worth the effort. And you would be correct every time. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithFeb 14, 2025
The oblique nature of the final act might perhaps be justified if the rest of the movie were better. As it is, I kept thinking, “I guess that’s funny, in a way” rather than actually laughing at any of Mr. Rankin’s aggressively whimsical notions. Read full review
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