Brilliantly shot by Muhammad Hamdy, filled with passionate, articulate young activists.

| Aug 28, 2019

Tipped for an Oscar nomination, Jehane Noujaim's kaleidoscopic documentary offers a gripping, behind-the-headlines account of Egypt's 2011 Tahrir Square uprising and the complexities of its aftermath.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 6, 2017

Noujaim's film attests to how quickly joyous weeping in the streets gave way to sectarian arguments over the army's role and fissures in promising alliances.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 14, 2014

If the resulting film is unwieldy - five editors, five "additional editors," and six assistant editors are credited - it also brims with angry urgency.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 17, 2014

The camera becomes a revolutionary: running, chasing, breathlessly jittery, up in the face of interrogators.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 16, 2014

Epitomizes nonfiction film not just as a way to deepen knowledge and understanding, but also as an art form.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 16, 2014

What does a revolution feel like from the inside? I'm not sure we'll ever get closer than "The Square," an electrifying, at times heartbreaking documentary from the Egypt-born, Harvard-educated documentarian Jehane Noujaim.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 16, 2014

It's an astonishingly intimate account of an ongoing revolution, seen from within the heart of historic social upheaval; alarming, uplifting, empowering.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 12, 2014

If you want to understand what's going on in Egypt right now - or simply love raw, in-depth documentaries - seek out Jehane Noujaim's dissection of a revolution.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 10, 2014

It's a gripping story and the fact that it isn't over only makes it more extraordinary.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2014

The pace of history, at once precipitate and open-ended, is the story here. The very term "revolution" denotes a turning process: it isn't a button push or a light switch.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2014

The extreme highs and lows of the Egyptian revolution captured in a single, astonishing documentary.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2014

Noujaim brings us right in close, often unnervingly close, to the tanks and gunfire and the chants and the tumult, but manages to forge a path through the rhetorical chaos.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2014

Jehane Noujaim's "The Square" is a riveting, eye-opening experience, told with empathy and immediacy.

| Nov 5, 2013

The Square understands that the Revolution itself is a work in progress, and while its immediacy means it, too, will soon be superseded, it stands as a vigorous, useful account.

| Nov 5, 2013

A powerhouse documentary that takes us into the eyes of several storms.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 1, 2013

"The Square" bears witness to history in an articulate, thoughtful and intensely dramatic way.

| Oct 31, 2013

"The Square" stands as a valuable document of a tormented time, an anatomy of a revolutionary movement doomed by a paucity of viable institutions, and by the movement's failure to advance a coherent agenda.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2013

"The Square" isn't a nuanced or complete view of Egyptian politics, but it's an enthralling view of fervent reformists, willing to go back to Tahrir as often as it takes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 28, 2013

Shows the human stakes and often punishing difficulties of challenging entrenched powers and interests.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 25, 2013