Kingdom of Silence pinpoints how such inherent cynicism defines America's toxic relationship with the world's biggest oil supplier (Riyadh would have calculated that Washington would be unlikely to retaliate against Khashoggi's death).

| Aug 6, 2021

Khashoggi was a sometimes slippery man. Yet he was inarguably brave: "You are in a war, you cannot give up, you cannot disappear." His steadfastness shames our government tactics to go along and get along.

| Dec 10, 2020

It's stifled by the fact that many of the "experts" on the subject stand by the party line that US support of Saudi Arabia is necessary for "stability" in the region.

| Nov 17, 2020

[It] helps us better understand why our leaders need to represent the high ideals of our country and when they stray, bad things can and will happen.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 21, 2020

It's an eye-opening, infuriating, but very well put-together look at an international tragedy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 8, 2020

...may be one of the most important docs you will see all year, spending needed time on an event that modern cable news simply didn't seem to have time to explain properly.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 8, 2020

Aided by an impressive roster of participants, it provides a clear and enraging picture of the tangled geopolitical dynamics which Khashoggi helped define, and which ultimately ensnared him.

| Oct 8, 2020

...as much about the complicated, co-dependent and sometimes toxic relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia as it about the man himself.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 8, 2020

But the movie is made in such a way that it renders what should be even the quiet and plaintive moments into a frenetic dog's breakfast of filmmaking tricks and gimmicks.

| Oct 8, 2020

In examining Khashoggi's professional life from its beginning... to its untimely end, Rowley draws a map of how journalistic censorship can extinguish a nation's democratic ambitions almost overnight.

| Oct 5, 2020

Respectful but not hagiographic.

| Oct 5, 2020

A compelling profile not just of Khashoggi, but of the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia, the documentary charts a quixotic path, from young reporter to self-exiled critic of his homeland.

| Oct 3, 2020

What stays with you is not the horrifying details of Khashoggi's killing but rather the chilling silence that followed.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 3, 2020

More than just an homage to Khashoggi's life, what's most notable about Rowley's work here is how direct he is in calling out American hypocrisy through the interviews or the facts disclosed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 2, 2020

It's the perfect encapsulation of decades of American policy, where support for democratic impulses has frequently run afoul of financial incentives and pragmatism.

| Oct 1, 2020

Its aim is not simply to serve as a memorial, or as muckraking, but to capture Khashoggi's career in all its contours and contradictions against a backdrop of changing geopolitics.

| Oct 1, 2020

The clear message is that we, as a country, have prioritized our strategic and financial relationship with an authoritarian regime "one step below a theocracy," as one interview subject puts it, over all else, including grotesque human rights violations.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 29, 2020