Observer by Oliver Jones

The story Hood’s film tells is a vital one to revisit, not just because the deceptions it illuminates inform so much of the political and international morass affecting our daily lives, but also shows the power of a single act of moral courage, and it does so while being blisteringly entertaining cinema.

Screen Daily by Tim Grierson

Director Gavin Hood gives the proceedings a rousing electricity, and he’s aided by a cast which leans into the story’s urgency and continued relevance.

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

A model of professionalism and energy, Official Secrets moves along at a brisk clip. It’s paced like a police procedural, but it focuses not on an investigator but rather a moral exemplar who takes a principled stand in defiance of the price that has to be paid.

Screen International by Tim Grierson

Director Gavin Hood gives the proceedings a rousing electricity, and he’s aided by a cast which leans into the story’s urgency and continued relevance.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

Bloody hell, the Brits do low-key, paranoid procedural dramas like Official Secrets well, with a pervading chill and no flash: The crispness cuts like a knife.

The Seattle Times by Moira Macdonald

It’s a good story, well told, though you have to forgive Hood for indulging in a little journalistic cliché.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Brad Wheeler

While Rhys Ifans chews scenery as a scruff-faced foreign correspondent, Knightley plays it taut and believable, and, as we know, nobody walks on cobblestones better than she. The end result is a professionally made film that is whistle-blowingly relevant, starring an excellent actress who successfully comes in from her Pride & Prejudice past.

Washington Post by Ann Hornaday

Although Knightley’s Gun often seems to be a passive figure, buffeted by the machinations of those around her, the film’s honesty about the enormous personal costs of whistleblowing is a welcome relief from more romanticized heroics.

Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt

And even as the narrative goes through its sometimes sermonizing paces, it’s hard not to be moved by the singular passion of a woman who effectively dismantled her own life not just to salve her conscience, but to save the soul of a nation.

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

To date, "The Insider" probably represents the most compelling whistleblower story to make it to the big screen and, although the subject matter is different, Official Secrets generates in the viewer the same sense of outrage.

The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney

Hood (Eye in the Sky), his co-screenwriters Sara and Gregory Bernstein and a seasoned ensemble of Brit stage and screen pros deliver a straightforward, solidly old-fashioned slice of real-life espionage, journalistic and legal intrigue that gets the job done in engrossing, clear-eyed fashion even if it lacks much in the way of stylistic verve.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

Official Secrets, despite its blasé title, despite the fact that this “true” story isn’t on a LeCarre level, in spite of its paucity of dramatic outbursts, is still a most engrossing history reminder.

Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

Gavin Hood wrings suspense out of the parsing of the nuances of evidence and the tapping of mysterious contacts.

Variety by Amy Nicholson

The crux of Gun’s struggle is that she risked everything to tell the truth, and the war happened anyway. Ultimately, her personal story was neither uplifting, nor tragic, which means the film surrounding her doesn’t hurtle toward a satisfying arc.

The Guardian by Benjamin Lee

Official Secrets is a well-intentioned retelling of a daunting act of courage and as a vehicle for informing more people of who Katharine Gun is, it’s effective, carefully laying out the incremental stakes as well as her noble intentions. Credit for this however lies almost solely with Knightley.

TheWrap by Robert Abele

A capably rendered, urgently argued portrait in courage that never quite rises above curious-footnote status.

The Film Stage by Dan Mecca

The story inside Official Secrets is one worth telling, but perhaps it would be better to read the book.

New York Post by Johnny Oleksinski

Ralph Fiennes as Gun’s eventual lawyer, however, is totally forgettable, as is much of the standard-issue, self-important docudrama. So much of Gregory Bernstein, Sara Bernstein and Gavin Hood’s screenplay arrives with a thud that it might’ve been written with clenched fists. Knightley’s overwrought performance doesn’t help either.