While this cool, crisp thriller may not have the complexity and polish of Anthony Minghella’s film, it does have a lean, urgent economy of storytelling that makes for a watchable yarn.

| Sep 12, 2023

A welcome throwback to Americans-in-European-peril classics like Charade and The Third Man, The Two Faces of January is a taut, tense and tricksy thriller worthy of your attention.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 7, 2022

An intelligent and efficient thriller.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2022

Well paced with the charms of a Hitchcock thriller.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 1, 2021

Amini has gone to the trouble to set the work in 1962 or so ... but his work tells us next to nothing about the period and next to nothing about Highsmith's attitude toward the times and the society.

| Feb 12, 2021

This Hitchcock-style thriller, set in 1962, feels like it was also made in that decade, and compared to most modern films of the genre, it turns out to be very refreshing.

| Aug 19, 2020

The Two Faces of January may feel like a throwback to the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock, but it doesn't have any of the charm or suspense that propels films.

| Original Score: 2.8/5 | Nov 27, 2019

There's something unnervingly stale about the whole endeavor, like a handsome grocery store cake that's sat on the icebox display too long.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 30, 2019

It's a bumpy ride - however, screenwriter Hossein Amini's directing debut is assured and smooth, and the result is classy, compelling, intelligent film noir with a contemporary feel that keeps us guessing to the end.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 6, 2019

Unfortunately, as layer upon layer of intrigue is gradually stripped away, what's left in the middle begins to look evermore unappealing.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 21, 2019

It is the characters that linger longest after the credits roll, and Amini gets great support from his leading trio.

| Mar 5, 2019

...a fairly misbegotten adaptation...

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 13, 2019

The Two Faces of January is good, but its ambitions exceed its achievements.

| Jan 10, 2019

The real star is unquestionably Oscar Isaac, who doesn't have the major material that he had in "Inside LLewyn Davis," but who is clearly an actor to watch.

| Aug 22, 2018

The Two Faces of January is a poor imitation and the characters never develop much after the first 15 minutes of the film - what you see is all you get.

| Aug 22, 2018

It's an elegant, hypnotically glamorous, old-school thriller of the kind that has become a rarity, and solidifies Isaac as one of Hollywood's most compelling new leading men.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 19, 2018

A slick Sunday-afternoon flick.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 5, 2018

[Patricia Highsmith's] world is gloomy, but it's nuanced. It's fun. That's not the world in [The Two Faces of] January, which seems incapable of humor or irony. Which isn't to say it fails.

| Aug 22, 2017

Whether it's as a starving misanthropic musician or a mysterious American swindler in Greece, Oscar Isaac positively oozes charisma

| Aug 15, 2017

Still, there's no shortage of visual pleasures to distract us from the existential boredom of a sinking ship.

| Aug 4, 2017