Metacritic Movie Ratings
A Separation Reviews

A sample of reviews from critics across the country.

• 100

  out of 100

  Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan

  A Separation is totally foreign and achingly familiar. It's a thrilling domestic drama that offers acute insights into human motivations and behavior as well as a compelling look at what goes on behind a particular curtain that almost never gets raised.

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• 100

  out of 100

  Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert

  The actors, as sometimes happens, create those miracles that can endow a film with conviction. Moadi and Hatami, as husband and wife, succeed in convincing us their characters are acting from genuine motives.

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• 100

  out of 100

  USA TodayClaudia Puig

  Sophisticated and universal yet deeply intimate, A Separation is an exquisitely conceived family drama that has the coiled power of a top-notch thriller.

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• 100

  out of 100

  Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman

  Farhadi is no mere formalist. His film is a spiritual investigation into the rise of women and the descent of male privilege in Iran, and a look at the toll that has taken. In a movie of flawless acting, it is Moadi - terse, proud, angry, haunted - who shows us that rare thing: a soul in transition.

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• 100

  out of 100

  Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern

  The members of the cast represent ensemble, naturalistic acting at its finest.

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• 90

  out of 100

  Variety

  Tense and narratively complex, formally dense and morally challenging.

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• 90

  out of 100

  The Hollywood Reporter

  As in all the director's work, the cast is given top consideration and their realistic acting results in unusual depth of characterization.

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• 80

  out of 100

  Village VoiceJ. Hoberman

  What's fascinating is how the various issues - religious or practical - are played out in these two quite different families, yet always come down to irreconcilable differences between rebellious women and their stiff-necked, controlling men.

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• 80

  out of 100

  The New York TimesA.O. Scott

  It is a rigorously honest movie about the difficulties of being honest, a film that tries to be truthful about the slipperiness of truth.

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