Ultimately, Bill’s dilemma is our dilemma. Can we stand by and watch crimes being perpetrated by those in a position of power, thinking only of preserving our own skins?

| Apr 11, 2025

Director Tim Mielants frames a rural Ireland that is glacial and grey.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2025

The ending is a little too abrupt for a film put together with such subtlety. Much is left unsaid, but if the script had gone any further, it would have had to embark on a sequel.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 8, 2025

… a bleak vision that reveals something glorious and shining ...

| Original Score: 17.5/20 | Apr 1, 2025

The movie knows how patience can be an important virtue in a work like this; it never accelerates its pace for fear of losing the viewer and, thus, it respects the main character´s own pace. [Full review in Portuguese]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 7, 2025

There's a quiet but gripping trepidation that lurks beneath the surface.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 11, 2025

Depressing and claustrophobic, dealing with a traumatic past, this is a shattering story of redemption, a truly magnificent film.

| Original Score: 4 | Jan 28, 2025

I was touched in the end, but never got hooked during the narrative process. I wanted to feel more, I guess.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 20, 2025

Mielants’ work cares little for the theatrics of filmmaking, giving great dignity to the horrors he depicts through his refusal to bend toward sensationalism.

| Jan 13, 2025

"Small Things Like These" is a kind of muted, Irish version of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest," with Cillian Murphy playing Nicholson's Randle McMurphy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2024

Portrait of a working-class man who demonstrates the difference between empathy and compassion.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 26, 2024

A quiet, intimate character study, Small Things Like These is about as honest and accurately titled a film as there ever was. Because this film is absolutely small, but not in a bad way.

| Dec 2, 2024

It’s a somber weaving of disturbing discoveries, but not one without threads of humanity and compassion brought to the screen by Murphy’s deeply emotive performance.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 27, 2024

Cillian Murphy gives a masterclass performance in subtlety and nuance

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 25, 2024

Cillian Murphy's talent is huge but the focus of this movie is small.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 25, 2024

I suspect it may be too low-key for people... but it is a film that whispers its story to you and I found it very moving.

| Nov 23, 2024

The film explores the complexities of doing the right thing, the lies we tell ourselves, and the horrors lurking just below the surface.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 22, 2024

It helps that it's based on such an emotionally driven novel—by Claire Keegan—as well as some remarkable and stirring performances.

| Nov 20, 2024

Intense and somber Irish morality drama.

| Original Score: B | Nov 20, 2024

I appreciate the no-frills approach here, where the filmmakers did not bludgeon viewers with overexpositions. Murphy's subtle but astute performance is the film’s special effect.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2024