Here is a film that takes viewers on an unpredictable journey, tackling an ambitious variety of themes and ideas without ever losing the plot.

| Dec 14, 2023

Irish director Neil Jordan's compelling new film is both a political thriller and a love story, uniting various sexual and political currents into one dreamlike narrative.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 11, 2023

A teasing, seductive intimacy immediately develops....The Crying Game is a very good movie indeed. It leaves one giddy.

| Feb 8, 2018

Suspenseful and emotionally complex, skillfully mixing politics with affairs of the heart, The Crying Game is something unexpected, a challenging new way to tell a very old story.

| Mar 9, 2015

Seeing the film twice reveals two completely different viewer perspectives -- a kind of "before and after" syndrome -- and like any good film The Crying Game grows richer as it sinks into your thoughts.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2015

One of the year's best films.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 9, 2015

This film must be discovered as it unfolds: If anyone starts to tell you about it, hit him.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 9, 2015

Its components are built upon deception and forgiveness, misconnections and misunderstandings, sexual jealousy and moral ambivalence, trust and loyalty, desperation and loneliness. It is also, not incidentally, a crackling good movie.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2015

In a style of agitated naturalism, Jordan examines poignant matters of life and death, sex and friendship, duty and loyalty, freedom and bondage, manhood and womanhood and all the ambiguous areas in between.

| Mar 9, 2015

[Jordan] veers from taut thriller to devilishly sly comedy, from romance to a story of torment and redemption.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2015

The battle of the sexes has been transformed into a war between women and gay men, with straight men as bemused spectators and prudent judges.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 9, 2015

This thriller gives you an entertaining run for your money and some offbeat frissons along the way.

| Feb 13, 2012

After luring us into what appears to be a classic they-gazed-at-each-other-across-an-empty-bar romantic setup, Jordan undermines our expectations so thoroughly that it's as if we've rediscovered our innocence as moviegoers.

| Original Score: A | Sep 7, 2011

An astonishingly good and daring film that richly develops several intertwined thematic lines, The Crying Game takes giant risks that are stunningly rewarded.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008

The Crying Game's effectiveness comes not from the big reveal, but from the expertly crafted story that frames it and makes it into a meaningful reversal rather than a sudden isolated shock.

| Oct 6, 2006

A finely-acted, sensitively-written tale of an IRA gunman finding some sort of redemption in the arms of a British soldier's lover.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 2, 2006

Tthe film does work, raises a plethora of questions concerning loyalty, violence and the nature of desire, and is in some respects a summation of the various themes that have emerged from Jordan's work.

| Feb 9, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 12, 2004

The physical production is as lush as the film's romantic longings.

| May 20, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 12, 2001