Wholly calculated and far smarter than its slasher flick marketing, "The Gift" exudes a slow boiling creepiness that, for the most part, doesn't jump the shark or digress into that aforementioned gutter of cheese.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 14, 2024

Hall, as a woman who's been slowly waking up to her reality for a long time without even knowing it, is terrific.

| Aug 1, 2024

It may play as a standard stalker film in the beginning, it slowly evolves into something else. It’s sad, disturbing, and a fairly unpredictable film. The ending is abrupt, but it allows the viewer to make their own conclusion — which I quite liked.

| Feb 22, 2023

It certainly hits some of the normal genre ticks, but you almost sense that it’s doing it to set the audience up in order to pull the rug out from under them later on.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 21, 2022

Edgerton’s engrossing and innovative directorial debut is a complicated, cleverly crafted drama about secrets and revenge, implanting definite anticipation for his next effort as a director.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 8, 2022

A chilling psychological thriller that leaves us with a genuinely unsettling ending.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 8, 2021

Even more unfortunately, after having seemingly committed to a darker, more psychological and more character-focused direction, [it] returns to basic schlock in the overblown and credulity straining finale...

| Jan 14, 2021

The Gift is a commendable, character-driven genre film and we look forward to more from Edgerton as actor and director.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 20, 2020

[A] finely-tuned, multi-layered, creepy-as-all-get-out thriller...[with] a tension that builds and builds to one gut-punch of a finale.

| Jul 17, 2020

It's so well put together, so expertly paced with pitch perfect tone and style that I was on the edge of my seat the entire way through.

| Original Score: A | Jul 15, 2020

There's something clearly off with the new friend, but Bateman's buttoned-up, dismissive twerp isn't quite the kind of guy you'd want to hang with either...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 11, 2020

The Gift is a very strong directorial debut for Edgerton.

| Apr 8, 2020

The Gift gives viewers a lot to mull over. It's smart, insidious, and extremely nasty.

| Feb 13, 2020

The Gift lacks either Fincher's talent for dense plotting or Hitchcock's elegance. Long passages in the middle seem repetitive, as Edgerton leans on jump-scares over and over.

| Jan 10, 2020

Bateman is superb in his role as, well, an arsehole, and Edgerton's subtle portrayal of a quietly off kilter outsider about to snap is masterful.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2020

The Gift is an astonishingly creepy, tense, and effective movie.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 26, 2019

The violence is always emotional and psychological, not bloody and physical, which makes The Gift that much more disconcerting.

| Aug 15, 2019

The Gift's reveal isn't worthy of the apprehension it creates, which is chiefly down to three classy performances. Thriller fans may be reasonably sated but The Gift lacks distinct juju.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 4, 2019

The Gift is like finding a gem in a summer of mostly mediocre films. It's character-driven, well-developed, smartly written and finely acted.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2019

The Gift might not smash the boundaries of genre filmmaking but therein lies its appeal; a smart, well-made thriller that balances high-minded cinema with genre thrills.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 5, 2019