Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Faultlessly acted by top Australian talent, including Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom marries heightened emotionality with cool contemporary style.

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

A phenomenal debut feature with a terrific title, David Michôd's Animal Kingdom is both a study in Darwinian survival-in this case survival of the shrewdest-and a group portrait of ruthless predators in the underworld of Melbourne, Australia.

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

It's a distinctive, ominous and hypnotic work of cinema.

San Francisco Chronicle by Amy Biancolli

It's a remarkable film: A gritty, gut-churning, crime thriller based on a true story. Its greatness lies in its unwavering fidelity to human nature and the unstoppable laws of the wild.

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

Don't be fooled: In this unpeaceable kingdom, the den mama is also ready to eat her young.

Boxoffice Magazine by Pam Grady

This could have been a slick little thriller. Instead, it evolves into the unfolding of an epic tragedy.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

The film's depiction of the raw fear lurking below the brothers' braggadocio is the most pronounced emotion in a movie whose focus on the personalities of its criminals suggests an Australian answer to "Goodfellas," minus the wise-guy humor.

NPR by Bob Mondello

First-time writer/director David Michod reportedly worked for eight years on his screenplay, deepening its tale of a violently dysfunctional family until its gangster conventions feel as if they're in the service of a modern-day Greek tragedy.

Time by Richard Corliss

A contemplative crime drama with a high startlement quotient.

Chicago Reader by J.R. Jones

A densely textured moral universe that makes good on his metaphoric title-and in this case, the animals are perfectly willing to eat their young.

Observer by Sara Vilkomerson

Among the most gripping, well-paced, acted and directed, and generally thrilling of anything that I've seen (yet) this year.

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

Animal Kingdom joins in the tradition of brutally unsentimental Australian crime dramas like "The Boys," in which the stakes are low, except to the people staring down the barrel of a gun.

Time Out by Joshua Rothkopf

The strength of Animal Kingdom is its slow-building fatalism; the criminals' luck runs out, but then finds depressing extension via an out-of-left-field collaborator. It's a movie that has very little faith in authority, not even in Guy Pearce's righteous detective. The only law here is Darwin's.

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

A naturalistic drama rich in psychology and attention to details. There's no glamour here, but one false move by anyone can result in death, so tension fills nearly every scene.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

Writer-director David Michôd catches you in a vise and squeezes - hard.

Movieline by Michelle Orange

Because Animal Kingdom is so richly suffused with atmosphere and style, you could almost float right past the deficiencies in its story in an admiring trance.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

Early on, writer-director David Michôd serves up "Trainspotting"-like tricks and narration that is beguiling, if rarely apropos. But the actors are something.

Village Voice by Michael Atkinson

Michôd wants a Greek epic but doesn't have the material. Animal Kingdom is a work of obvious ambition, and seeing a debut filmmaker swing for the fences like this is its own kind of moviehead satisfaction.