A sometimes gentle, sometimes bracing meta confrontation of the real-life drama swirling behind the film.

| Sep 30, 2023

...as it progresses and the many, many awkward laughs pile up (honestly, this is a very funny movie), it becomes clear that surrealist is exactly what it is...

| Dec 10, 2020

It's also a slow burn, ... [b]ut Kim [Min-hee] gets two stupendous set-pieces, all facilitated by alcohol, and she burns it all down.

| Jun 30, 2020

Sangsoo accomplishes something a bit more substantial with his latest, allowing for a strong central performance to rise out of a melancholic bit of observational comedy.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 5, 2019

Caustic but subtle. Direct but restrained. Contained, even silently violent. Overwhelmingly sharp at times, but no less beautiful. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 5, 2019

Yeong-hee lives in her own sad little world, and through On the Beach at Night Alone, we feel sorry for her.

| Jun 21, 2019

A singular and poignant act of self-examination and personal catharsis that takes private pain and turns it into an anguished public atonement.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 4, 2019

"On the Beach at Night Alone" definitely deserves a watch, particularly for Kim Min-hee's performance, and the ones who are introduced to Hong's works through this film will definitely find a number of merits.

| Apr 7, 2019

For all its questions, On the Beach at Night Alone delivers an intensely human experience.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 6, 2019

Brings some truths attached and is definitely worth exploring.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 1, 2019

The parallels are obvious, the sentiments genuine.

| Oct 24, 2018

Hong is still unwilling to serve up a straight memoir or let himself play out a fantasy in which a woman acts as his perfect love object. To put it mildly, a director like Woody Allen could learn a lot from him.

| Oct 10, 2018

On The Beach At Night Alone seems almost unequivocally Hong Sang-soo's most somber work and somehow his most personal, in a oeuvre full of them.

| Oct 10, 2018

The movie's plot is paper thin... Then a little more plot happens, but the movie neatly sabotages that action with a trick that was an audience-insulting cliché.

| Aug 8, 2018

It's all very personal and confessional, but it lacks an entry point for outsiders, with Hong's weirdness and structural mischief missing its mark unless one is immersed in the details of the director's life.

| Jul 11, 2018

An intriguing but simplistic drama with comical overtones to its melancholy mood.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 25, 2018

As much as it is a personal work, it is also composed with a skilled hand that is capable of beguiling even the most careful of viewers.

| Jan 24, 2018

[Hong Sang-soo is] a brilliant portraitist of human behavior. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 27, 2017

Whether as an act of explanation, of self-flagellation, or something much murkier, "On the Beach at Night Alone" refuses to play by the conventional rules, of movies or of scandals.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 15, 2017

This is movie-making as a kind of extended confessional, from a filmmaker to an actress, and it's compelling on that score.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 15, 2017