Told with force and assurance, hewing to primal archetypes of family and fate; economy of means; elegance of composition; a sense of time and place that is immediately coherent and memorable; a bracing sense of humor.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Aug 29, 2024

Fortunately, [Sidney] Lumet's hard work has paid off this time around--the title comes from the Irish toast, "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead"--and he's currently at work on his 45th feature in 50 years.

| Original Score: 3.4/4 | Mar 17, 2024

There is a lot of family drama in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, combined with bouts of suspense, and the finalé is fitting and satisfying.

| Nov 28, 2023

With its frenetic editing, booming score, razor-sharp dialogue, loathsome characters, and early adoption of digital filmmaking, this is more akin to a bravura upstart making their second or third film than an old industry stalwart on his last hurrah.

| Original Score: 8.5/10 | Oct 26, 2022

Maybe it's just a bad script. That said, I love the way Hoffman manages to elicit sympathy for his character, a role coated with a thick layer of disgust. In one scene, he has an emotional breakdown in a car that makes the whole film worth watching.

| Dec 8, 2021

Dark, depressing, cynical, and supremely well acted.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 24, 2020

Original, modern and classic at the same time... The actors' direction is sublime. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 5, 2020

Lumet has created one of his most exciting and emotionally resonant films in quite a few years.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 2, 2020

Sydney Lumet uses a fractured storytelling technique to get to the bottom of this family train-wreck.

| May 26, 2020

A sleazy yet intriguing thriller where bad people continue to make major mistakes that manage to shatter their lives and everyone's around them.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 29, 2019

An unrelenting, knee-to-the-gut piece of filmmaking that features the year's best ensemble cast doing some of the very best work of their careers.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 6, 2019

A superb, majestically morose crime thriller.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2018

Sidney Lumet returns to the sort of form he showed in his heyday. It helps that we're on Lumet's favourite territory -- the heist gone wrong.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 3, 2018

I enjoyed it all the way through the last second.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 12, 2017

The problem is that we get no real sense of what these characters were like before everything went haywire, so little is believably at stake.

| May 16, 2016

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

( ... ) so perversely fun that a few false notes-a pushy score and certain moments that veer toward a cheaper kind of melodrama-don't nag as much as they might have.

| Sep 11, 2010

Ferociously pleasurable

| Aug 27, 2009

Suspense and action would be enough to seal this film, but the feeling of dread, that under different circumstances this could be us, makes this a heist picture for the ages.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Aug 14, 2009

Lumet proves he's still a master storyteller, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 14, 2009