In the hands of a different, more confident director, Boston Strangler could have been fantastic. As it is, it just feels like Zodiac-lite, with very little to make it memorable despite a compelling mystery at its core.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 7, 2025

Because real life events don’t unfold in three acts, the film feels repetitive and at times aimless.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 13, 2024

Matt Ruskin’s film dials down on fetishizing murderous men to tell the story of women who might just see them for who they really are.

| Jan 25, 2024

Director Matt Ruskin, who also wrote the screenplay, has created a serviceable film which while concentrating on sexism, feminism and many other “isms”, forgets the basics of telling a thrilling story

| Aug 27, 2023

Thanks to fine performances by Knightley and Coon, Ruskin’s script demonstrates how McLaughlin and Cole prevailed over overt misogynistic attitudes as well as subtle but implicit gender biases and microaggressions.

| Aug 23, 2023

There is a quietly persistent, simmering and incendiary flare to this film, which, by virtue of Knightley's knowing performance and the well-written script, feels tired and afraid.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 9, 2023

At a time when seemingly every streaming service debuts new true-crime programming on a weekly basis, “Boston Strangler” stands far above the crowd.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 9, 2023

Matt Ruskin’s Investigative thriller limps and shudders like the victims it details, making one wish they were watching the films that inspired it instead.

| Jul 24, 2023

Here is the film that She Said so desperately tried to tell us it was - at least on the journalism side of things. Strong lead characters, especially by Keira Knightley, navigating sexism that is as inherent in solving the case as reporting it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 26, 2023

It lacks empathy, humanity, and insight, and strands Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon in a dry retelling of a famously frustrating serial killer case.

| Jun 3, 2023

It’s a diverting enough package, but only if you consider the Googling rabbit hole you’ll fall into afterward as an integral part of the genre’s make-up. As you should.

| May 29, 2023

This has to be one of the worst looking movies I can remember.

| Apr 21, 2023

At home, you can kind of appreciate that, hey, this knockoff Zodiac has some good talent on it.

| Apr 20, 2023

An oddly inert and even old-fashioned yarn, one that sleepwalks for long stretches, defusing much of the drama of what is an undeniably fascinating true-crime story.

| Original Score: 2 | Apr 11, 2023

Lacks tension and excitement and ends with a highly speculative conclusion that strains for profundity it fails to reach....But it does offer a credible portrait of the two women...who struggled...to push the investigation forward.

| Original Score: C+ | Apr 5, 2023

Boston Strangler could have done so much more to make their story feel more vital without undermining their success with conspiracy theories and half-explained alternate suspects. Boston Strangler is a decent story that could have been so much better.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 5, 2023

a decent journalism time capsule that aligns more with 2015’s Spotlight than with a suspenseful thriller like Silence of the Lambs.

| Apr 5, 2023

The film’s depiction of sexism is blunt, but never preachy or didactic, and the performances by Knightley and Coon ground their characters’ actions in a stark reality of inequality.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 4, 2023

It’s quite effortlessly unnerving when it desires to be, but there’s a surprising lack of risk taking with a story that should’ve indulged in the unpredictable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 4, 2023

Keira Knightley brings fresh life to this old story.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 2, 2023