Saint Omer

"It is a core-shattering experience in every frame."

— Emily Zemler, Observer

"The standard for ‘Best of 2023’ lists has already been set."

— David Jenkins, Little White Lies

"It is riveting and uncompromising cinema of the highest order."

— Josh Kupecki, Austin Chronicle

"Gavel-banging clichés are scoured away in Alice Diop’s subtly groundbreaking film."

— Danny Leigh, Financial Times

"It’s a stripped-down French legal drama, with a carefully controlled, expanding emotional impact, touching on matters of motherhood, gender, immigration and race."

— Liam Lacey, Original-Cin

"A subdued but intriguing portrait of a monstrous mother and the woman who struggles to understand her, which should build on the critical success of Diop’s last film, the award-winning We."

— Wendy Ide, Screen International

"An intellectually charged, emotionally wrenching story about the inability of storytelling — literary, legal or cinematic — to do justice to the violence and strangeness of human experience."

— A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"The severity and poise of this calmly paced movie, its emotional reserve and moral seriousness – and the elusive, implied confessional dimension concerning Diop herself – make it an extraordinary experience."

— Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

"In her narrative debut, Diop has found a way to mix her hard-hitting documentary style with fiction to raise a mirror to society. This new arena, with its wider reach, makes Diop an exciting filmmaker to watch."

— Ronda Racha Penrice, TheWrap

"Alice Diop’s documentarian approach to the courtroom drama is fresh and urgent, consistently commanding attention to the women as they speak and listen. A philosophical discourse delivered with astonishing clarity."

— Lillian Crawford, Empire

"This immensely intelligent film ... exposes a host of limits—of empathy, self-knowledge, language, cultural understanding—while it expands into infinite possibilities regarding the timeworn genres of the courtroom thriller and the immigrant tale."

— Melissa Anderson, 4Columns

"Diop’s Saint Omer doesn’t condescend to the viewer by slinking toward black-and-white offerings of good and evil, or broad statements about race or gender. This ripped-from-the-headlines narrative accomplishes a feat far more creative, and a bit less forced. It dances on the surface of these participants, and in their subtle ripples, to reveal the humanity in the seemingly inhumane."

— Robert Daniels, The Playlist