Despite pranks like the boulder, the humour is in the script and sidelong glances. It’s all the funnier and cleverer for it, lampooning not just the film industry but all creative aspiration and the vanity that can accompany its success.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 11, 2024

I’m not kidding when I say that I needed to take a break halfway through my viewing because of how relentlessly bored I was getting.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 6, 2024

Its protagonists will oscillate from ridicule to sanctification or appreciation. Consequently, the general tone of the narrative is one of an acidic and sarcastic comedy that dramatically laughs at artistic clichés and the film industry itself...

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 18, 2024

Tightly constructed, and its sharp, witty script elevates the already fascinating and dedicated performances. Official Competition is a fiery satire and one of the funniest films I have seen this year so far.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 25, 2023

As a satire, Official Competition is a mixed success, since it's rarely as laugh-out-loud funny as intended, though it's never less than entertaining.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 8, 2023

These are easy targets although there’s a lot of enjoyment to be hand in seeing them hit so accurately.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2023

Fans of Hollywood-insider flicks like The Player and S.O.B. should dig this lively endeavor.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 13, 2023

Official Competition is such a fascinating film that can either be watched with a bowl of popcorn or a notepad and pen and a glass of wine.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 14, 2023

A biting satire... an Oscar-worthy send up of Oscar-worthy films.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 13, 2022

With career-best comic performances, Cruz, Banderas, and Martínez wring laughs from the most subtle looks and gestures.

| Oct 3, 2022

If there is one ingredient that gives this film its peculiar appeal, it’s the spectacle of actors playing actors.

| Sep 22, 2022

Official Competition is – like the film-within-a-film it focuses on – overwhelmingly an actor’s picture and Cruz, Banderas and Martínez are at ease throughout.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 20, 2022

Cruz, with her cascading curls, hipster eyeglasses and eccentric outfits, has a ball with the highminded, driven Lola as she pushes her actors to increasingly absurd degrees.

| Sep 16, 2022

While not on the level of Robert Altman’s The Player, Official Competition is an observant send up of the self-importance of the festival circuit. Cinema buffs may squirm at the derision, but few can deny the accuracy of this caricature.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 15, 2022

It’s comedy with an edge, a more than satisfying ending and a haunting final image.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 14, 2022

Official Competition features lots of talk about creativity and commerce, art and life, but with its offhand absurdities and low-key critiques of pretension and vanity, it’s also laugh-out-loud funny.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 13, 2022

All in all, Official Competition is a fun and mature look at the film industry, or more specifically, the individuals within it and their motives.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 13, 2022

[A] playful and intelligent film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 6, 2022

For most of the runtime, the viewer enjoys the weird and idiosyncratic behaviors on display—made all the better because they’re brought to life by three incredible actors.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 6, 2022

I enjoy that Official Competition really sends up that kind of brooding artist persona.

| Sep 2, 2022