Östlund has a psychologist’s eye for human nature and the understated comedic touch of Jacques Tati. The end result is akin to virtual slapstick, the emotional equivalent of slipping on a banana peel.

| Jul 24, 2023

The film’s execution only occasionally reaches its ideological grasp, but Östlund’s such a talented filmmaker that he can cover up the lack of follow-through in his script. That’s tough to do!

| Nov 10, 2022

The Square foregrounds a dilemma at the core of artistic practice: as moving and influential as it can be, art too often exists in a realm separated from “real life,” cordoned off as safely “consumable” entertainment. —Guest post by Michael Joshua Rowin

| Jun 10, 2022

Sharpened by a series of corrosive comic moments and provocations, The Square lashes out with a refined blow against both indifference and empty gestures of faux-humanitarianism.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 17, 2022

(...) Östlund makes the extension of performativity something that ends up dislodging the meaning, which pierces the artistic itself, until it reaches the Social. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8.5/10 | Jan 9, 2021

None of the themes explored in this review required much close analysis. Unlike the knife's edge satire of Force Majeure, The Square is a blunt object. But maybe that's what it takes to point out our world's quotidian surrealism...

| Dec 11, 2020

Beautifully choreographed and... tweaked but scathingly true to life.

| Jun 3, 2020

A vision about the high culture and the low culture. The Bourdieu perspective nowadays. A film about our social behavior. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 19, 2020

The Square has been called a satire, likely because we haven't developed a popular term for a film that, though drawn in exaggerated lines, at its foundation is hopeless and doesn't mean to teach us anything with its hopelessness.

| Feb 12, 2020

As much as The Square enjoys poking fun at the buffoonery of the art world, it's more interested in what that world represents: a self-sustaining bubble where money, power, and posturing commingle.

| Feb 8, 2020

The reason why The Square works so brilliantly with macabre and laughter is that it mirrors what we see and do everyday.

| Feb 4, 2020

The Square is a bit too cynical for its own good, but reaffirms my belief that the future of cinema can be found in Scandinavia.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 27, 2020

[A] wickedly funny and insightful film.

| Jan 16, 2020

Ostlund latest satire is as formidably funny as it is a harsh condemnation of estranged humanity.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 10, 2019

The Square is a bizarre film that has it's moments and Claes Bang is very good at playing suave but awkward.

| Oct 3, 2019

It can be noted that it wants to offer a more global approach, but this is not the feeling that end up being transmitted, and it is a shame. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 7, 2019

With bright moments, 'The Square' seems right and necessary. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 3, 2019

Don't they know it's the end of the world?

| Jul 14, 2019

Christian is the affluent chief curator of an elitist Stockholm art museum preparing to mount an exhibition called "The Square" when he is robbed of his phone, his wallet and, incredibly, his cufflinks.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 7, 2019

Ostlund's film carries bizarre and hilarious edges.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 8, 2019