92
Metascore
31 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The New YorkerDavid DenbyThe New YorkerDavid DenbyI would be surprised if this brilliant and touching film didn't become required viewing for teachers all over the United States. Everyone else should see it as well--it's a wonderful movie.
- 100VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangTalky in the best sense, the film exhilarates with its lively, authentic classroom banter while its emotional undercurrents build steadily but almost imperceptibly over a swift 129 minutes. One of the most substantive and purely entertaining movies in competition at Cannes this year.
- 100TimeRichard SchickelTimeRichard SchickelIt is hard to think of another film more tightly autobiographical than this one. It's even harder to think of other films that build so gripping a narrative out of a string of comparatively minor and disparate incidents.
- 100SlateSlateThis unassuming movie will nail you to your seat.
- 91The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe beauty of The Class is that it puts the lie to the one-teacher-can-make-a-difference myth propagated by so many other films.
- 90SalonStephanie ZacharekSalonStephanie ZacharekThe Class is a lovely, exhilarating work about the ways in which failure and frustration can open the pathways through which we make sense out of life.
- 90Village VoiceVillage VoiceFor anyone who loves language, this cut-and-thrust is a heady delight, so rich and free-flowing in its rhythms that it's hard to decide whether what we're seeing is a vérité-style documentary or a realist drama.
- 90Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranThe reality of François' classroom is so intense that it holds our interest even while the film's dramatic focus is building so quietly under the surface that we don't notice it at first.
- 90The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisHere Mr. Cantet -- whose earlier features include "Human Resources" and "Time Out," two other dramas about systems of power -- has done that rarest of things in movies about children: He has allowed them to talk.
- 75New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickThe Class offers no Hollywood ending, but is rewarding for those up to the challenge.