Those faultless performances make something special of the material. Many will find it disconcerting to be reminded of the many conflicts... that blew up following the fall of the Soviet empire. Worth cherishing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 2, 2016

A quietly profound study of the unfathomable nature of conflict.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 18, 2015

The funniest and most profound film about war since Dr Strangelove.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2015

It is tremendous storytelling: engaging, intelligent, and with some lovely touches.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2015

The film is a character study, a chamber piece with incursions, a morality play with a thoughtful sense of its own boundaries.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 18, 2015

Though the themes about war and peace will be familiar, this is good, old-fashioned storytelling - with a high level of craftsmanship.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 7, 2015

It is difficult not to be moved by "Tangerines," which begins to feel like a legend despite one's nagging sense something is missing from the film's hasty third act.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 7, 2015

Writer-director Zaza Urushadze turns this fragile premise into a superior chamber drama.

| Apr 30, 2015

Tangerines, the first Estonian picture nominated for the foreign-film Oscar, has a heart as ripe as the citrus fruit of its title, but its message doesn't yield much juice.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 30, 2015

Georgian writer-director Zaza Urushadze avoids histrionics or moralizing, relying on a strong cast that expresses the film's central argument about war's absurdity largely through taciturn action, not words.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 30, 2015

There are some touching interactions between the players, but the film's humanism is too predictably calibrated.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 24, 2015

It might be willfully nave, but it also successfully argues that the path to peace begins with a laying down of not only guns, but also cynicism and distrust.

| Original Score: 65/100 | Apr 24, 2015

"Tangerines" is an example of lean, unadorned old-school filmmaking where familiar style and technique combine to unexpectedly potent effect because of the great skill with which they've been employed.

| Apr 23, 2015

Because the conflict between Abkhazians and Georgians is so sketchily drawn, the ultimate heartwarming tone of the film seems not so much unearned as unspectacular.

| Apr 21, 2015

Tangerines becomes an object lesson in the resilience of ancient animosities, and the limits, sadly, of common sense.

| Apr 17, 2015

By the end, Georgian director-writer Zaza Urushadze has performed a small miracle by presenting the insanity of war in such a compact form.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 17, 2015

"Tangerines" is a modest film, sure of its proportions and clear about its intentions. The key to its effectiveness lies with the actors ...

| Apr 16, 2015

This remarkable piece of antiwar cinema honors its theme, and the movie medium.

| Apr 16, 2015

The shift from philosophical parrying to actual combat doesn't make Tangerines more compelling; on the contrary, it suggests that the filmmakers didn't have the confidence to tell their story without falling back on genre tropes.

| Original Score: C+ | Apr 16, 2015

Urushadze's excellent cast imbues their thinly drawn characters with a great deal of life, but the roles are so transparent that the film feels like more of an advertisement for peace than it does an argument for it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 15, 2015