The bleak mise-en-scene and often handheld camerawork coupled with long takes help ground the film in this form of social realism and documentary filmmaking. Despite being set in the 1980s, there is no romanticizing or nostalgic longing for the past.

| Oct 4, 2024

The trains, especially, seemed to me like a representation of how it feels when you think that another life exists, but not for you. That feeling is usually false but it is very convincing.

| May 24, 2023

In a story that unfolds over a tense 24-hour period, Mungiu steeps us in the everyday, forcing the viewer to understand this world through its discordance with our own.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 12, 2022

A Dogme 95-style naturalistic masterpiece, as intricately woven and delicately put together as an ancient tapestry. The lives of the characters are fully invested, imbued with ambiguity and shimmering with verisimilitude. They won't soon leave you.

| Dec 18, 2020

A mountain of ethical and aesthetic rigor. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 3, 2020

A formidable and empathetic expression of the necessity for human agency.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2020

High production values thanks not only to Mungui but also cinematographer Oleg Mutu, superlative acting and compelling story make it easy to see why 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS was handed the Palm D'Or by Jane Fonda...

| Nov 7, 2019

A searing, unforgettable film that is a future classic of the New Romanian Cinema.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 6, 2019

The film's omission by the Academy was so controversial that it was largely responsible for a change in the way nominations in that category are now processed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 8, 2019

[Christian] Mungiu has taken a leap forward into bold, focused storytelling.

| Feb 14, 2018

Regular spaces and regular interactions take on...a grave pressure cooker effect...the film nearly becomes unbearable as small actions, movements, looks, and utterances take on an affectation of desperation and the utmost importance.

| Nov 17, 2017

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, which was unjustly denied an Academy Award nomination for best foreign-language film, is grueling and unsentimental. The excellent acting is what keeps it humane.

| Aug 22, 2017

Mungiu called the film one of his "Tales From the Golden Age," but there's nothing satirical or sardonic about the story or the drama, and none of the sentimental East German "Estalgia" for the good old days of comforting Communist rule in sight.

| Jul 16, 2016

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 17, 2011

How it makes you feel depends little, if at all, about your position on abortion. The procedure acts as a MacGuffin for caustic commentary about Communist clampdowns and a friendship's annihilative death spiral through loyalty, desperation and sacrifice.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 25, 2010

No one in Bucharest gives a damn about anything. And he takes 113 long, drawn-out minutes to send this bit of news.

| Aug 11, 2010

Unrelieved gloom

| Aug 27, 2009

Director Cristian Mungiu makes effective use of fairly static camera setups, in addition to some hand-held shots, to give the film a documentary feel.

| Original Score: B | Mar 31, 2009

Extremely powerful story about women dealing with illegal abortion issues in Stalinist Romania, but it is not a simple propaganda movie. In fact, it is a sublime if deeply troubling work of art.

| Mar 4, 2009

Grippingly horrible.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 18, 2008