Chicago Tribune by Maureen M. Hart

Noel Coward's much-loved thwarted romance. [14 Nov 2008, p.C7]

The Telegraph by Jenny McCartney

A romance that stays memorable precisely because it couldn't go anywhere. Celia Johnson plays the married woman who meets Trevor Howard in a train station and falls in love; David Lean directs with forceful restraint. [24 Jun 2013]

TV Guide Magazine by Staff (Not Credited)

A touching, exquisitely handled film dealing with two ordinary people who accidentally fall in love.

LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen

Shockingly modern in sensibility, construction, and execution, Brief Encounter is very different from what one thinks of as a David Lean movie, whose historical epics have come to define posh, mid-century, cinematic excellence.

IndieWire by Vikram Murthi

David Lean’s Brief Encounter captures love at its most ephemeral.

The A.V. Club by Keith Phipps

Encounter remains the definition of timeless, a beautifully shot, heartbreakingly acted, minutely detailed illustration of thoroughly recognizable human frailty.

Time Out by Tom Huddleston

David Lean's wondrous romance, adapted from Noel Coward's story, is one of the most emotionally devastating movies of all time.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

The film is thrillingly, unapologetically about decency and honour, about, as Laura heartrendingly puts it, controlling oneself.

BBC by Nick Hilditch

David Lean ably directed Noel Coward's script for this intensely passionate film in which almost nothing happens.

Entertainment Weekly by Steve Simels

Director David Lean’s magnificent rendering of the short, passionate, and unconsummated affair between two middle-class, middle-aged Brits remains the most memorable treatment of extramarital romance in movie history.