Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

An Education captures the very limited possibilities for female liberation in early-'60s London -- with massive social change on the distant horizon, but not here yet -- in exquisite detail.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Joe Williams

The combination of a literate script, an adroit cast and an economical style is simple addition that achieves an alchemical feat: the best film of the year.

Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy

It is, in its quiet, precise, classical way, nearly perfect.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey

Hornby is a fine craftsman and his dialogue sparkles, though occasionally the scenes are too calculated.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

This happens in 1961, when 16-year-old girls were a great deal less knowing than they are now. Yet the movie isn't shabby or painful, but romantic and wonderfully entertaining.

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

This is a performance, and a film, to cherish for this year and always.

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

This tale of an English schoolgirl's hard-won wisdom is thrilling --for the radiance of Carey Mulligan's Jenny, who's wonderfully smart and perilously tender; for the grace of Lone Scherfig's direction, and the brilliance of Nick Hornby's screenplay.

The A.V. Club by Nathan Rabin

An Education shares with Hornby’s best work trenchant insight into the way smart, hyper-verbal young people let the music, films, books, and art they love define themselves as they figure out who they are and what they want to be.

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

Afterward, you'll want to listen to the Beatles sing ''She's Leaving Home.'' It might be a girl like Jenny the lads had in mind.

The Hollywood Reporter by James Greenberg

Topped by a fine cast, a first-rate script by Nick Hornby and tight direction by Lone Scherfig, the film is a smart, moving but not inaccessible entry in the coming-of-age canon.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

An Education is remarkable for the traps it doesn't fall into. Jenny, for all her naive impulses, isn't a victim.

Village Voice by Scott Foundas

Something of a deceptively packaged Oscar-season bonbon--a seemingly benign, classily directed year-I-became-a-woman nostalgia trip that conceals a surprisingly tart, morally ambiguous center.

Variety by Todd McCarthy

Carey Mulligan shines in a captivating performance.

Chicago Reader

This British drama is handsomely textured and beautifully acted, though the script often feels giddily out of touch with the essential creepiness of the scenario.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

For all its original touches, though, An Education follows a conventional trajectory.

Time Out by Keith Uhlich

Lone Scherfig directs it all as if it were a breezy lark, so a third-act tonal shift makes for an incongruous, excessively moralistic fit with everything that’s preceded. Most insulting, though, is the way in which the climactic passages miraculously tidy up every frayed edge of Jenny’s life.