Village Voice by Stephanie Zacharek

This is an unsparing picture, one whose violence, though deftly handled, is bone-crunchingly rough. Yet its emotional contours are surprisingly delicate, thanks, in large part to O’Connell’s performance.

The Playlist by Jessica Kiang

The supporting cast all do excellent work too, but this is Eric’s story, and so it’s O’Connell’s film. His performance is a revelation.

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

Mackenzie (whose previous credits include "Perfect Sense" and "Young Adam") applies a sharp kitchen sink realism to this haunting setting and directs it toward an ultimately moving family drama that just happens to involve vicious convicts.

The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

It’s a credit to both Mackenzie’s talent as a director of actors and to the underlying humaneness of his vision that he argues that the right option is the more difficult and less predictable one — and that he does so without relying on sentimentality, unearned sympathy, or a happy ending.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

Though it is, finally, an affecting story of two damaged men bound by blood and something like love (and also a thrillerish catalog of double crosses and shifting allegiances), it is, above all, a study in the patterns of chaos that govern penitentiary life.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

Starred Up is an edgy, teeming thriller, brilliantly disorienting, making strange a world we thought we knew, at least from other movies.

Wall Street Journal by John Anderson

Director David Mackenzie's gripping, convincing and convincingly violent convict drama owes its authenticity largely to the experiences of ex-prison therapist Jonathan Asser, who wrote its screenplay. But the opening 10 minutes are a virtuosic example of virtually wordless filmmaking.

The Dissolve by Tasha Robinson

The most tremendous thing about Starred Up is exactly how simple it keeps things, and what a richly nuanced story emerges in the process.

Slant Magazine by Elise Nakhnikian

The cautious optimism with which it answers questions about rehabilitation and forgiveness is credible because the characters and setting feel so thoroughly authentic.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

O'Connell, soon to head the cast of Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken," explodes onscreen in a star-is-born performance. Starred Up is a small indie film in danger of slipping through the cracks at the Hollywood-driven multiplex.

Variety by Peter Debruge

The pic owes its believability to Asser, who served as a therapist similar to Oliver’s character, drawing from his experience to shape the world. Asser brings more than just realism, however, crafting the central father-son relationship on the foundation of classical Greek tragedy.

Total Film

The details ring true and the performances smart in Mackenzie’s prison movie. You wouldn’t meet Jack O’Connell’s tasty glare in a boozer, but try taking your eyes off him here.

Empire by Damon Wise

A brutal, immersive prison survival story with a breakout performance by British actor Jack O’Connell.

The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy

Some years from now, Starred Up, a rough, violent and, to American ears, half-indecipherable British prison drama, will be remembered as the film that announced a new star, Jack O’Connell.

The Telegraph by Tim Robey

It's halfway-strong, just under-dramatised; goodness, though, if it doesn't show what O'Connell is capable of.

Time Out London by Tom Huddleston

It’s disappointing when Starred Up begins to lapse into soapy cliché.