Will have you clenching whatever is nearby...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 12, 2024

I was literally on the edge of my seat... It really did make a huge impact on me... This is an under-the-radar classic.

| Aug 22, 2023

...a progressively absorbing and electrifying drama...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 11, 2022

Lumet... has a knack for landing a tight, winning premise. Fail Safe, a box office failure in its time that's been considered a classic ever since, is no exception.

| May 11, 2020

Fail Safe imagines a no-win situation backing a sturdy, dependable American president in the proverbial corner, where, in a bit of sentimental and masochistically crowd-pleasing fantasy, he manages to do the right thing.

| Apr 29, 2020

doesn't pull any of its punches, and it has the strength of its own convictions to see things through the logical end, horrible though it may be

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 11, 2020

While Dr. Strangelove is admittedly the superior picture in practically every regard, the superb Fail-Safe bests it when it comes to nerve-wracking tension.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 9, 2020

It's a well done television play that somehow got on a large screen where its literate but talky script and excellent acting can't make up for the lack of action or monotony of pace that so bog it down.

| Feb 5, 2020

Despite these Illogical drawbacks, Fail Safe is as scary for grown-ups as a child's ghost story is for kids.

| Feb 1, 2020

The true terror behind Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe (1964) isn't that things went wrong, it's that they went right.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Dec 28, 2018

An impressive and disturbing brink-of-doom thriller.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 21, 2015

Not only a damn good thriller, but a terrifying account of how easily such technology can malfunction.

| Oct 21, 2015

It packs a melodramatic wallop that will rattle a lot of chattering teeth.

| Oct 21, 2015

Grim, bleak and highly claustrophobic ...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 21, 2015

The cold war gets hot in this nuclear disaster film.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 17, 2015

Lumet's tense political drama is riveting, but unfortunately it was released the same year as Kubrick's similarly-themed Dr. Strangelove, which was a satire and more thus more popular

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 3, 2011

It faithfully translates on the screen the power and seething drama of the Eugene Burdick-Harvey Wheeler book.

| Jun 29, 2011

Lumet, o mais subestimado dos diretores, mantm a tenso sempre constante, extraindo ainda grandes atuaes de seu elenco e investindo num desfecho impactante e corajoso.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 2, 2009

Tense, chilling and earnest Cold War political thriller.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 19, 2007

Lumet sensibly avoids pyrotechnics in favour of tightening the psychological screws ...

| Jan 26, 2006