…Official Secrets may be raking over material that is cold potatoes now, but as a look at what the personal consequences might be for a whistle-blower, it’s prescient enough…

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 3, 2024

Official Secrets fares best in its compelling and often riveting first half...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 21, 2024

It’s a phenomenal film, packed with amazing actors, giving equally amazing performances. It tells an important, true story in an easy to watch way.

| Original Score: A | Mar 8, 2023

Official Secrets' unshowy craftmanship is persuasive in its building of suspense.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2021

Confusing vitriol with passion, Official Secrets' ambitions become diluted by unapologetically brash filmmaking.

| Original Score: 10/20 | Apr 2, 2021

Though overlong, this is a vital film that speaks to the importance of telling the truth for the greater good and the power and necessity of a free press to expose it no matter what the circumstances.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Nov 21, 2020

Government is a bully, the little people get squashed, and legal conflicts are dragged out for a ridiculous amount of time to prove a point no one can remember. Just. Like. This. Movie.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 16, 2020

While Knightley offers a compelling performance, Official Secrets is weakened by its uneven tone and lack of punch, making it a safe effort of retelling an international scandal.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 11, 2020

Powered by a kinetic sense of style and full-throated performances, illuminating and transcending a story that could quite simply have been just another political thriller.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2020

And without spoiling too much, if you think the cries of war criminal lobbed at Blair, Bush and Howard are lefty hysteria, the powerful courtroom finale is a timely reminder where that accusation comes from.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 15, 2020

In it's narrative everything is measured. It also points to a very subtle argument about the abuses of power, the ethics of duty and the meaning of morality in times of war. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 31, 2020

A timely story about how the world's biggest champions of democracy can just as easily undermine the democratic process if it serves their own selfish interests.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 23, 2020

Hood's passion for shining a light on political moral responsibility is a brave move for a filmmaker. With all the best of intentions to highlight Gun's sacrifice in a corrupt political environment, the zeal is simply missing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 8, 2020

Knightley shines... in a performance that balances conviction and soul baring, and is all the more genuine for its lack of showiness.

| Feb 21, 2020

Official Secrets has a metaphorical impulse that goes beyond the specific. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 21, 2020

So much is stuck in a proscenium: in its editing, in its music, in the greys that drown every scene. In the end, little feels discovered. It feels lectured.

| Jan 17, 2020

Even if you're one of the few stalwarts who still thinks the Iraq War was worth the agonizingly high toll ..., you will root for [Katharine] Gun because of [Keira] Knightley's astonishing ability to connect to her audience.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 13, 2020

It's a lean, taut-as-a-drum political thriller with a blood-boiling theme and a fine cast that includes Ralph Fiennes, Matt Smith and Rhys Ifans, among others. But it's built, mostly, around the superbly stricken performance of Knightly.

| Jan 6, 2020

Not easily forgotten, Official Secrets is another reminder about the dangers of unchecked government power.

| Original Score: A- | Jan 2, 2020

With the deeply divisive issue of imminent war at hand, Official Secrets gives the audience a glimpse into the shadowy side of politics and government affairs while allowing Gun's courage to take the spotlight.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 26, 2019