- 10
This is no nostalgia trip taken by an 83-year-old director. It's a fierce, hot slap of a movie, a shameless melodrama with bite.
—Carina Chocano Los Angeles Times
- 10
...may be the only movie I've seen that earns comparison to both a great film noir and Long Day's Journey Into Night. It's proof that Sidney Lumet's talent is, in every sense, timeless.
—Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly
- 10
...one of the great American films of the past decade and [a] crowning masterpiece...
—Robert Koehler Christian Science Monitor
- 9
—Leah Rozen People
- 9
...fast and ferocious, his [Lumet's] sharpest and best since Prince of the City -- and surely one of the year's finest.
—Lou Lumenick New York Post
- 9
...such a superb crime melodrama that I almost want to leave it at that. To just stop writing right now and advise you to go out and see it as soon as you can.
—Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times
- 9
...curiously exhilarating.
—A. O. Scott New York Times
- 9
...one hell of a melodrama.
—J. Hoberman Village Voice
- 8
Straight out of the "best-laid plans" school of film noir, Sidney Lumet's no-frills, late-career entry into the genre is as dark, fatalistic and hard-bitten as the real deal.
—Ken Fox TV Guide
- 8
...searing...
—Glenn Kenny Premiere
- 8
...a dynamite film that ranks with the year's best.
—Peter Travers Rolling Stone
- 8
...attention must be paid. Not just because the director in question, Sidney Lumet, is an inspiration who, at 83 years old, has made one of his greatest movies, but also because he has managed to make one of the best crime dramas in recent years.
—Pete Hammond Maxim
- 8
As both an evocation of all the director's obsessions (corruption of American institutions, familial secrets) and a step towards more abstract storytelling, Before the Devil develops and portrays a world where blood has run black and greed has infiltrated our last vestige of hope: family.
—Chris Cabin filmcritic.com
- 8
Ultimately, the film is just a smart caper picture with some good performances, but at times it's very smart, and Hoffman's performance in particular is one of the most natural and unexpectedly affecting that he's given in years.
—Noel Murray Onion AV Club
- 7
...a bluntly effective, methodically detailed B movie that proves Lumet's continued fidelity to a tried-and-true credo: all institutions corrupt.
—Akiva Gottlieb Slant Magazine
- 7
...is its own compelling entity.
—Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune
- 7
The brilliance of Before the Devil Knows You?re Dead -- and finally its limitation -- is that it?s never clear whether this is the stuff of melodrama or Lumet?s gnomic little joke.
—Ella Taylor LA Weekly
- 7
As both an evocation of all the director's obsessions (corruption of American institutions, familial secrets) and a step towards more abstract storytelling, Before the Devil develops and portrays a world where blood has run black and greed has infiltrated our last vestige of hope: family.
—Chris Cabin Reel