What drove le Carre to write is the question the documentary asks, and answers in quite a mesmerising way.

| Jan 9, 2025

Odd connections that have made exquisite corpse鈥搇ike shapes in my memory bank...among the most pleasurable documentaries...

| Jan 27, 2024

As a le Carré fan, I enjoyed it as a curio, but le Carré is cagey about a number of topics which make the film less illuminating than one might hope.

| Jan 24, 2024

Exceptional documentary on John Le Carre but with limits.

| Original Score: A | Dec 25, 2023

Ceaselessly captivating. Morris’ stylishly shot “Pigeon Tunnel” isn’t just one of the best documentaries of the year. It is a storytelling masterpiece.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 4, 2023

There is a certain fascination in witnessing how le Carré, often labeled the ‘poet of self-hatred’, crafted novels that seamlessly blended imagination and personal experiences with unparalleled competency.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 4, 2023

... le Carré talks of ‘the joy of self-imposed schizophrenia that a secret agent loves’, but Morris’s skilful questioning somehow gets straight to the core of the duplicitous heart of a writer who created ice-cold characters with great love

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 2, 2023

The Pigeon Tunnel provides a captivating introspective with the esteemed author John le Carré, widely regarded as one of the greatest spy novelists of all time. For fans of le Carré’s work, this documentary is a must-watch.

| Nov 21, 2023

Extremely accomplished work, reflecting a long and lauded career in the documentary form, specializing in extremely revealing in-depth portraits of odd people, places, and topics. Unfortunately, I didn鈥檛 really love it, probably because I鈥檓 so familiar...

| Nov 17, 2023

The Pigeon Tunnel works perfectly as a seductive 101 to the work of Cornwell/le Carr茅. Still, it would鈥檝e benefited from not just being a companion piece but a longer dive into the biography of its subject.

| Nov 14, 2023

Elegiac to a fault, the film offers a chance to return one last time to the mind of a genius who passed away in 2020 and left behind 30 novels that seek, twist and elide the truth with every page.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 9, 2023

The Pigeon Tunnel cuts close to the heart, being a deeply personal matter.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Oct 31, 2023

This intriguing documentary puts spymaster general David Cornwell front and centre, as Oscar winning filmmaker Errol Morris looks to shed some light on the life of best-selling author John le Carre under the spotlight.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2023

It's a fascinating film not only in terms of content (think: big secrets), but also in the way it bends the documentary form to make it interactive.

| Original Score: 7.8/10 | Oct 29, 2023

The late novelist hides in plain sight in the documentary, a cerebral personal interrogation directed by veteran Errol Morris. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 29, 2023

Cornwell’s reflections spoken just outside death’s door (he died in 2020) yield riveting admissions that appear genuine. After all, what reason would he have to lie? ... This is why so much of “The Pigeon Tunnel” emits the air of a deathbed confession.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 28, 2023

It is a pleasure to listen to le Carre, speaking as he does in perfect sentences, and see him crack a smile every now and then. He is as sharp as one might imagine, and funny besides.

| Oct 28, 2023

This beautifully constructed film finishes with Morris asking one last question. What does the spy novelist see these days when he looks in the mirror?

| Oct 27, 2023

I don't know if Morris helps us know the "real'' le Carre, but the le Carre we meet emerges as talker of masterful control and, more importantly, a writer of impressively similar bent.

| Oct 27, 2023

Morris embraces Cornwell's mysterious persona, training his eye not on the familiar intricacies of his love life or fame, but rather the Faustian parables that continue to wrack his mind.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Oct 27, 2023