The China Syndrome is a tense thriller and it also serves as a reminder of how far some people will go to keep a problem from becoming public.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 2, 2025

A large part of the film is simply people having conversations in rooms – but oh what people. Oh what conversations.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 21, 2025

It’s a beautifully made thriller that never puts a foot wrong and maintains its pace and skillful build-up of suspense to the very end.

| Jul 23, 2022

What gives the movie its major impact (beyond the shock value of the events) is its exploration of human nature and how the values of the characters are tested and shaped by crisis.

| May 18, 2022

The characters are never more than skin-deep, but the events are more important, and director James Bridges builds the tension to an almost unbearable pitch.

| Nov 8, 2021

It's refreshing beyond hyperbole to see such suspense generated not by distortions of human perversion and/or heroism, but by well-portrayed human reactions in a terrible but not exaggerated situation.

| Nov 5, 2021

More than anything else, its primary dramatic force is the strength of the central characters.

| Original Score: 8/10 | May 11, 2021

"This movie is a refined example of the liberal discourse, although, being the seventies of Vietnam and Watergate, the proposal of the film is much less hopeful than one might think." [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 31, 2020

A pseudo-documentary for anti-nuclear activists hoping to convince of potential environmental downfalls.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 27, 2020

Filmmaker James Bridges has infused The China Syndrome with a deliberate, slow-burn sort of feel that proves an ideal complement for his, Mike Gray, and T.S Cook's screenplay...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 12, 2020

Bridges and his cast have done their work well. There isn't an unexciting moment in it.

| Sep 20, 2019

Despite its awkward development, the story's greatest asset is its ability to makes us confront reality. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 7, 2019

It's a gripping drama and one which feels all too feasible for comfort.

| Oct 31, 2018

Scary, absorbing thriller predicts risks of nuclear power.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 5, 2014

What we must quarrel with is the heartless, devious, and appallingly manipulative manner in which the authors of the film have drawn their good-guys-and-bad-guys battlelines ...

| Mar 25, 2011

The film is one of those rare modern thrillers that manages to combine fantastic acting and intelligent dialogue with real, heart-stopping suspense.

| Mar 27, 2009

Not a comforting film, but an undeniably potent one.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 27, 2009

A tightly assembled didactic thriller.

| Mar 27, 2009

A moderately compelling thriller about the potential perils of nuclear energy, whose major fault is an overweening sense of its own self-importance.

| Mar 26, 2009

It's an exciting and worthwhile old-fashioned thriller about the dangers of a nuclear power accident.

| Original Score: A- | Jan 30, 2009