75
A slow-burn tale filled with beautiful imagery and understated performances, its elegance yields one of Scorsese’s most subtle efforts.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
Less showy than The Last Temptation Of Christ, more gripping than Kundun, the third part of Scorsese’s unofficial ‘religious’ trilogy is beautifully made, staggeringly ambitious and utterly compelling.
100
Scorsese has hit the rare heights of Ingmar Bergman and Carl Theodor Dreyer, artists who found in religion a battleground that often left the strongest in tatters, compromised and ruined. It’s a movie desperately needed at a moment when bluster must yield to self-reflection.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
With ambition and reach, and often a real dramatic grandeur, Scorsese’s film has addressed the imperial crisis of Christian evangelists with stamina, seriousness and a gusto comparable to David Lean’s.
60
Though undeniably gorgeous, it is punishingly long, frequently boring, and woefully unengaging at some of its most critical moments.... Still, viewed through the narrow prism of films about faith, Silence is a remarkable achievement.
100
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
It’s a film full of tight close-ups of hands accepting gifts that comfort, inspire and bring succour to their recipients’ souls. That’s how we should receive it.
70
It’s an invitingly austere movie, designed for both searching believers and curious others. The film can be cinematically rigorous, but it’s never ritualistically flashy.
100
New York Daily News by Stephen Whitty
Silence is a slowly unfolding, deeply thoughtful film about questioning yourself. About questioning authority. About taking stock of where you've failed as a human being, and wondering how you can make amends — to yourself, to others, and to God.
80
Screen International by Tim Grierson
Uneven, sometimes repetitive but also powerfully moving and thought-provoking, Silence is an imperfect movie that’s very hard to shake.
90
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
Silence, more successfully than not, artfully addresses the core issue of its maker's lifelong religious struggle.