Zero Dark Thirty
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: December 19, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
95
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
44
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film.comStephanie ZacharekFeb 27, 2013
Zero Dark Thirty is precise, definitive filmmaking, yet Bigelow refuses to hand over easy answers. Some people call that evasion. I call it the ultimate despair. Read full review
100
EmpireKim NewmanJan 21, 2013
Gripping throughout, with an impressive central performance, this is like a Dogme 95 redo of a Chuck Norris film - by heroic effort, the good guys find and kill a bad guy. How you feel about that is something Bigelow leaves you to decide. Read full review
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 11, 2013
The U.S. government did torture prisoners of war in the name of its so-called war on terror and, by extension, in the name of all Americans. What Bigelow and Boal seem to be arguing is that such actions take a deep cosmic toll on the people responsible -- whether directly, in the case of Chastain's character, or indirectly, in the case of you and me. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 10, 2013
By and large, Zero Dark Thirty dispenses with sentimentality and speculation, portraying the final mission not with triumphalist zeal or rank emotionalism but with a reserved, even mournful sense of ambivalence. Read full review
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 10, 2013
Unlike too many films these days, Zero Dark Thirty dares to embrace complexity. And that makes it not just state-of-the-art entertainment, but a great film. Read full review
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 9, 2013
The last thing we see in Zero Dark Thirty is Maya's face and it is also ours, silently crying tears of reflection. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 3, 2013
One of the most innovative and best made films of the past year. Every now and then, even Dick Cheney gets to like a great movie. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 3, 2013
It's a movie made with the same coolly fanatical attention to craft the lead character displays in her work. Bigelow is now recognized as one of our true filmmaking naturals. Read full review
100
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 3, 2013
A great movie, an astonishing achievement on nearly every level. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 3, 2013
The key American film of 2012 ... Its stance is extremely tricky. It's not a documentary. It's not a load of revenge nonsense. It's not '24.' I'm still arguing with myself over parts of it. And that's a sign that a movie will endure. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 3, 2013
A monumental achievement that documents a coordinated and complicated response to a monumental tragedy. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 20, 2012
Judged solely as a film, a partially fictionalized account of the decade-long search for bin Laden, it's superbly crafted and relentlessly dramatic. More than that, though, Zero Dark Thirty is a shock to the system, one that's bound to incite discussion of profoundly troubling issues. Read full review
100
New York PostLou LumenickDec 18, 2012
Like the fictional Clarice Starling in "The Silence of the Lambs,'' Maya is a consummate professional who brilliantly performs her job in an often hostile work environment. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 18, 2012
One reason Boal makes such a potent combination with Bigelow is that her directing style moves us right along. She is so good with both action and creating a convincing look and feel for the film that the time it takes to get up to speed with the complicated plot does not feel like a problem. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasDec 18, 2012
Zero Dark Thirty stands to become the dominant narrative about this important historical event, no matter its distortions, composites, or other slippery feints of storytelling. In that, it wields a dangerous power. Read full review
100
Village VoiceScott FoundasDec 18, 2012
It's a sensational performance by Chastain...She's a most unlikely leading lady, pale and slight of stature, with a raging mane of strawberry blond hair, but she holds the screen with a feral intensity, an obsessive's self-possession. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisDec 18, 2012
Ms. Bigelow's direction here is unexpectedly stunning, at once bold and intimate: she has a genius for infusing even large-scale action set pieces with the human element. Read full review
100
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 18, 2012
Hang on tight. The knockout punch of the movie season is being delivered by Zero Dark Thirty. Read full review
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirDec 14, 2012
A sweeping and magnificent work of cinematic craft, by far the best film of Bigelow's career. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfDec 11, 2012
The details are gripping, presented with respect for an audience's intelligence. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 10, 2012
As a moral statement, Zero Dark Thirty is borderline fascistic. As a piece of cinema, it's phenomenally gripping - an unholy masterwork. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanDec 5, 2012
Once in a long while, a fresh-from-the-headlines movie - like "All the President's Men" or "United 93" - fuses journalism, procedural high drama, and the oxygenated atmosphere of a thriller into a new version of history written with lightning. Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's meticulous and electrifying re-creation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is that kind of movie. Read full review
100
The GuardianKatey RichDec 4, 2012
Telling a nearly three-hour story with an ending everyone knows, Bigelow and Boal have managed to craft one of the most intense and intellectually challenging films of the year. Read full review
100
IndieWireEric KohnNov 27, 2012
Bigelow delivers an acute realization of the mission's execution that's eerily in sync with the way it played in the popular imagination. Visually, the events unfold as a mashup of shadowy movements with flashes of green night vision. It's simultaneously predictable and tense. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyNov 27, 2012
The film's power steadily and relentlessly builds over its long course, to a point that is terrifically imposing and unshakable. Read full review
100
TimeRichard CorlissNov 27, 2012
The word docudrama doesn't hint at Boal's achievement. This is movie journalism that snaps and stings, that purifies a decade's clamor and clutter into narrative clarity, with a salutary kick. Read full review
95
NPRBob MondelloDec 20, 2012
Was the death of Osama bin Laden worth the moral price, the compromised ideals? The filmmakers could hardly avoid raising those questions, but they pointedly leave them for the audience to answer. This is not a triumphant story in their telling, but it is one uncommonly freighted with the weight of history. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid DenbyDec 17, 2012
The virtue of Zero Dark Thirty, however, is that it pays close attention to the way life does work; it combines ruthlessness and humanity in a manner that is paradoxical and disconcerting yet satisfying as art. Read full review
90
SlateDana StevensDec 14, 2012
It's only at the very beginning and the very end that Zero Dark Thirty functions (brilliantly) as a ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller. Much of the rest of the time, it's a workplace drama about a woman so good at her job that most of her colleagues think she's crazy. Read full review
90
MovielineAlison WillmoreNov 30, 2012
Zero Dark Thirty makes you feel every step of Maya's journey, but it's her impressive achievement and that of the film itself that we're left contemplating, not her humanity - a stunningly well-realized whole with few soft spots to latch onto. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazineJames RocchiNov 27, 2012
A masterwork from a master filmmaker. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeNov 27, 2012
Far more ambitious than "The Hurt Locker," yet nowhere near so tripwire-tense, this procedure-driven, decade-spanning docudrama nevertheless rivets for most of its running time. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 16, 2013
It's a mistake to confuse Zero Dark Thirty for "truth" – that would be a disservice to the high level of craftsmanship, from first-billed actors to below-the-line production crew, at work in this movie fiction – but there is admirably little fat on its bones. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJan 10, 2013
Zero Dark Thirty, like the mission that inspired it, commands respect, admiration, even awe in places for the logistical nightmares that had to be overcome to get it done. But it's a hard movie to love. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 4, 2013
Maya is as consumed with finding bin Laden as Jake Gyllenhaal was obsessed with finding a serial killer in "Zodiac," only he was doing it as a hobby. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 18, 2012
A compelling contemporary thriller with the added benefit of also being an engrossing character study. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJan 10, 2013
Viewers looking for a propagandistic take will be disappointed, but even those who doubt the overall framework and existence of the so-called War on Terror should appreciate this thrilling tale of the hunt for the world's most wanted man. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezNov 27, 2012
An electric, sprawling and ambitious effort that's easy to become absorbed by, and a picture that should impress those keen on the director's intelligent, composed and determined brand of filmmaking. Read full review
80
Total FilmNeil SmithJan 11, 2013
Breathlessly tense, thrillingly orchestrated and intellectually complex, this damn fine piece of rigorous, meticulous filmmaking enhances Kathryn Bigelow's status as one of her generation's most accomplished directors. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 18, 2012
What finally sticks in the mind about "ZDT" is its precision. What the film says about getting information from terrorism suspects in an era of high-tech surveillance depends on your point of view. What is unquestionable is how powerful its full scope is. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 11, 2013
Not everything about Zero Dark Thirty zips by. The middle hour of the film feels overstuffed with agency chiefs and national security advisors gazing on the feisty Maya with avuncular admiration. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJan 2, 2013
Do we want to know more about Osama bin Laden and al Qaida and the history and political grievances behind them? Yes, but that's not how things turned out. Sorry, but there you have it. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJohn SemleyDec 12, 2012
Doubtless, Kathryn Bigelow's greatest strengths emerge when she can more freely flex her muscles as an action filmmaker. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 18, 2012
While this decade-long look at the inner workings of the CIA is intriguing, the movie would have benefited by more character development and additional editing. Read full review
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