The Irishman's reviews
Media reviews
Indiewire
'The Irishman' is Martin Scorsese?s best crime movie since 'Goodfellas', and a pure, unbridled illustration of what has made his filmmaking voice so distinctive for nearly 50 years.
Variety
Not just a drama but a reckoning, a vision of the criminal underworld that?s rippling with echoes of the director?s previous Mob films, but that also takes us someplace bold and new.
Time
For the first two and a half hours of its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, 'The Irishman' is clever and entertaining, to the point where you may think that?s all it?s going to be. But its last half-hour is deeply moving in a way that creeps up on you.
New York Post
Scorsese is at the top of his game here. His film is never boring, and it explores some unexpectedly deep themes for mafiosos.
The Wrap
'The Irishman' hits hard, and it?s a reminder that nearly 30 years after 'GoodFellas', Martin Scorsese still has fascinating mob tales to tell, and fascinating ways to tell them.
Screen Daily
'The Irishman' is vintage Scorsese, with an often sinuously moving camera, occasional break-the-fourth-wall monologues, wicked wise-guy humour, and explosions of sudden tenderness and casual violence. And its final half-hour pulls something even deeper from the filmmaker ? moments of reflection, twinges of regret, worries about chances thrown away.
Vulture
For Scorsese, the slowing-down in 'The Irishman' is radical, and it pays off in the long series of final scenes in which the characters are too old to move as they once did. They can?t hide inside motion, and so Scorsese doesn?t ? and the upshot is one of his most satisfying films in decades.
Vanity Fair
I found myself reluctantly taken by the movie, and the way Scorsese uses it to maybe, just a little bit, atone for some of his own past blitheness about violence.
Entertainment Weekly
There?s a sense too, that 'The Irishman' is a kind of caps-lock Scorsese ? the greatest hits of his career revisited once more, with feeling.
The Hollywood Reporter
Scorsese's choice to make this a standalone feature and not a limited series seems mildly perplexing. Anyone hoping for the propulsive dynamism of, say, 'Goodfellas' or 'Casino' may be disappointed. But 'The Irishman' is also on many levels a beautifully crafted piece of deluxe cinema.