The New Yorker by David Denby

It's powerfully and richly imagined: a genre-busting movie that successfully combines the utmost in romanticism with the utmost in realism.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Juan Jose Campanella is the writer-director, and here is a man who creates a complete, engrossing, lovingly crafted film. He is filled with his stories. The Secret in Their Eyes is a rebuke to formula screenplays. We grow to know the characters, and the story pays due respect to their complexities and needs.

Chicago Reader by Andrea Gronvall

Director Juan José Campanella weaves together two love stories--between the victim and her husband, and the investigator and his former boss (Soledad Villamil)--and creates some masterful set pieces; his breathless chase through a packed soccer stadium is a marvel of choreography and top-notch CGI.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips

What are the odds that the year's most compelling mystery would end up hanging its hat on the year's richest love story

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen

The wonder is that the film balances its many genres, from the thorns of murder to the bloom of romance to the thickets of politics, with such easy grace.

Tampa Bay Times by Steve Persall

The movie grabbed me and wouldn't let go during a bravura set piece at a soccer game when Campanella's camera glides into the stadium, finds Benjamin's face in the crowd and doesn't stop moving (with only a couple of edits) for six breathtaking minutes.

Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman

To call it a masterpiece is premature: That's a title to be earned only in retrospect. But I've seen it twice now and can't imagine what I would change. It fits together tightly as a suspenseful puzzle, yet it's also emotionally rewarding and sardonically funny.

Empire by Kim Newman

Humane and harrowing, highly recommended. This one will stay with you.

The Hollywood Reporter

A riveting Argentine thriller spiked with witty dialogue and poignant love stories.

Variety by Jonathan Holland

A deeply rewarding throwback to the unself-conscious days when cinema still strove to be magical, The Secrets in their Eyes is simply mesmerizing.

Boxoffice Magazine by Pete Hammond

Campanella has laced his story with twists and turns worthy of Hitchcock and the framing device of the novel (which forces the protagonist to sort out the whole thing through writing) is ingenious.

Miami Herald by René Rodríguez

Although it is structured like a thriller, and its plot dominated by Benjamin's detective work, The Secret in Their Eyes is really a cautionary tale about the consequences of a life of too much apprehension and propriety.

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

The performances are tender, the script elegant, the cinematography (especially during a virtuoso chase scene in a soccer stadium) artful.

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

The film sprawls across two decades and 127 minutes, but there isn't a memorable image in it.

Time Out by Keith Uhlich

About as deep as a kiddie pool, which isn't to say it's an unpleasant frolic.

Boston Globe by Wesley Morris

The secret here is that the movie is rather tasteless. It has the high, slightly nauseating stink of perfume on garbage.

Village Voice

Campanella, who overconfidently takes his time, outfits the film with ludicrous interrogation scenes, a drunken colleague who provides comic relief and redemptive tragedy, and a climactic flood of memories that plays like a trailer.