By shining a spotlight on the everyday corruption and dirty dealing, Mungiu enables us to understand just why his homeland is struggling to escape from the weight of the dictatorship that ruined it and betrayed its people for so many years.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 9, 2017

The cinematography, the dialogue and the performances, especially Adrian Titieni's as an earnest and anxious Mr. Fix-It, are impressively naturalistic.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 2, 2017

It's ... insistent that life is a series of complex decisions, with fate intruding, and the path's never clear.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 1, 2017

It feels like nothing's happening until you realize everything is, right before your eyes.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 1, 2017

[Graduation] is a masterfully composed effort that is instantly fascinating, moving towards its emotionally hushed conclusion with breathless, if still unhurried, intensity.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 12, 2017

Mastering a movie equivalent of a detached first-person point of view, Mungiu unearths hidden depths in the supporting characters while creating a three-dimensional portrait of Romeo as a man who no longer lives in quiet desperation.

| May 5, 2017

Writer-director Cristian Mungiu continues his expert evisceration of his native Romania, and by extension, this whole rotten world and the people who make it that way, even as they convince themselves otherwise.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 5, 2017

To Mungiu's credit, he makes it clear that, although the film is set in Romania, its moral quandaries could be taking place anywhere.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 28, 2017

"Graduation" has a lot on its mind, but is told in such an intimate way it's like eavesdropping on a conversation: the closer you listen, the more you'll hear.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 28, 2017

Graduation may not occupy a place at the top of the class of contemporary Eastern European cinema like some of Mungiu's other films, but it definitely sits above the curve.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 27, 2017

This is a tough film that deals with serious issues, and that may hurt its box-office chances. But "Graduation" will probably be around long after less challenging fare is forgotten.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 27, 2017

The acting is outstanding; Mungiu's straightforward dialogue and naturalistic shooting make for a movie that feels genuine, with no false steps.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 27, 2017

A rich film that repays serious pondering.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 26, 2017

Mungiu eschews music almost entirely, his takes run long enough that viewers are forced to take in the frame's details and figure out which are important, and his flatly matter-of-fact conversations almost never include obvious exposition.

| Apr 20, 2017

It's consistently absorbing and well-acted, and Mungiu's camera makes even simple police station interrogations or drive-around sequences unassuming things of beauty.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 20, 2017

In Graduation, Mungiu takes a scalpel and dissects life in modern Romania.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 19, 2017

The writer-director, Mr. Mungiu, is a master of ramification; his films start off as plain tales, told with seeming simplicity, then they deepen into complex psychology and spread out into contemporary culture.

| Apr 13, 2017

Bleak, naturalistic and flawlessly acted, "Graduation" distills the mood and moral decay of a place whose gray skies and nondescript housing blocks feel like permanent reminders of its dark history.

| Apr 13, 2017

The power of the film is cumulative, as the filmmaker spins a mesmerizing morality tale from the dross of daily life. In his skillful hands, the ordinary turns out to be anything but.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 13, 2017

Mungiu is almost sadistically patient in letting this play out; by the last 40 or so minutes you can more or less see where it's all headed, even if it's through your fingers.

| Apr 11, 2017