--- title: "A Hidden Life: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-hidden-life/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/a-hidden-life" critics_score: 74 critics_reviews: 29 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # A Hidden Life (2019): what the critics said Critics' score 74 from 29 reviews: 21 positive, 5 mixed, 3 negative. Most critics welcome A Hidden Life as a return to more focused storytelling for Terrence Malick, finding his familiar style well suited to a conscientious objector’s resistance to Nazism. Praise centres on the images of rural labour, landscape and ordinary domestic life, which give the questions of faith and conscience a physical setting. The warmer reviews find emotional force in the marriage and moral urgency in the refusal to serve an evil regime. The spread is wide, however, with the nearly three-hour length and repeated imagery testing even some sympathetic critics. The central disagreement concerns how fully the film explores its protagonist: admirers find spiritual depth, while detractors see a saint whose certainty leaves little room for drama. The Hollywood Reporter argues that the beauty flattens the material rather than revealing his inner life; Film Comment objects to the narrow historical scope and limited attention to the Holocaust. ## Little White Lies — Sophie Monks Kaufman Rating 5/5/4. 16 January 2020. The critic celebrates the film's rhapsodic portrayal of private moral resistance and an equal, soul-deep love story amid encroaching fascism, praising its emotional resonance and spiritual depth. [Read the review](https://lwlies.com/reviews/a-hidden-life) ## The Telegraph Rating 5/5. Malick has found the inspiration for his best picture in years with this sombre spiritual war epic about one man’s refusal to fight. It is a sober, truthful, powerfully unadorned portrait of an unpretentious martyr and his strong wife. [Read the review](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/hidden-life-reviewterrence-malicks-best-picture-years/) ## Empire — Ian Freer Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 January 2020. Malick is back on historical ground with the most engaged and urgent work in ages, rooting his style in moral reality and using history to pose relevant questions about evil leadership. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/a-hidden-life/) ## Evening Standard — David Sexton Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 20 May 2019. Festival review. Malick returns to a well-ordered script for the true story of a conscientious objector, delivering a rhapsodic and prayerful work that is a justification of his late style and an act of worship. [Read the review](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/cannes-2019-a-hidden-life-review-an-exquisite-work-of-genius-a4146306.html) ## Los Angeles Times — Justin Chang Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 12 December 2019. The critic calls it Malick’s strongest film in nearly a decade and a return to form, a poem and polemic that embodies its subject’s pacifism. It singles out the forceful denunciation of the complicity of church and state amid the Austrian farmer’s conscientious objection. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2019-12-12/hidden-life-review-terrence-malick) ## RogerEbert.com — Matt Zoller Seitz Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 December 2019. The critic calls the film one of Malick’s finest and most demanding works, a nearly three-hour philosophical summation of his career that rewards close attention. It singles out the extraordinary attention paid to mundane physical details of work, nature, and daily life as the element that makes the story an epic. [Read the review](https://rogerebert.com/reviews/a-hidden-life-movie-review-2019) ## Sight and Sound — Richard Combs Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 16 January 2020. The critic highlights Malick's sensuous historical reverie evoking a harmonious rural way of life destroyed by war, framing the story as a battle between good and evil through images of the physical and spiritual realms. [Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/hidden-life-review-terrence-malick-stages-battle-between-good-evil-austrian-hamlet) ## Total Film Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 21 May 2019. Festival review. Malick is back with a spiritual WWII story that deserves to be held in the same regard as his finest work. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/terrence-malick-is-back-with-spiritual-ww2-movie-a-hidden-life-a-film-to-hold-in-the-same-regard-as-his-finest-work/) ## IndieWire — David Ehrlich Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2019. Festival review. Malick returns with a shatteringly powerful story of faith in crisis that stands as his best film since The Tree of Life. [Read the review](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/a-hidden-life-review-terrence-malick-cannes-1202142833/) ## Financial Times — Danny Leigh Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 15 January 2020. Malick confronts real darkness in this portrait of a wartime pacifist, bringing a spiritual dimension and resulting in his best film in years despite the familiar stylistic tics. [Read the review](https://www.ft.com/content/ad19ea90-37a9-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4) ## Radio Times — Karen Krizanovich Rating 4/5. The critic praises the film's vivid immersion in ordinary existence, morality and conscience, noting its evocative cinematography and timely message that history pivots on unhistoric acts. [Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-tyiyp1/a-hidden-life/) ## Time Out — Phil de Semlyen Rating 4/5. 20 May 2019. The critic calls it Malick's best film in years for its disciplined storytelling, urgent philosophising and raw power alongside signature visuals, while noting a slightly laboured Christ metaphor in the second half. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/a-hidden-life) ## Vulture Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 13 December 2019. Malick takes on the evils of history in a more linear, philosophical mode that uses movement, wide-angle visuals, and everyday moments to convey one man's act of resistance and its personal cost. [Read the review](https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/a-hidden-life-review-terrence-malicks-new-movie.html) ## Screen Daily Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2019. Festival review. The critic notes the film's urgent take on standing up to tyranny through a Christ-like martyr figure, admiring its melancholy reflection on the limits of individual righteousness while acknowledging its familiar Malick style. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/a-hidden-life-cannes-review/5139660.article) ## Slant Magazine — Sam C. Mac Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 21 May 2019. Festival review. The film is a lyrical but uneven pean to moral purity and one man's crisis of faith and country, pushing Malick's inquiry further even as its form occasionally verges on the monotonous. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review-a-hidden-life-lyrically-attests-to-a-mans-quest-for-moral-purity/) ## The Independent Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 16 January 2020. Malick has found a subject worth getting close to in the true story of an Austrian farmer who refuses to swear loyalty to Hitler. The film bravely asks how one retains innocence in dark times, though it is guilty of incessant questioning. [Read the review](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/a-hidden-life-review-terrence-malick-director-cast-nazi-austria-a9282651.html) ## The New York Times — A.O. Scott Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 12 December 2019. The critic finds the film gorgeous and at times frustrating, praising its embrace of beauty while noting how the arguments and meaning of Franz’s defiance slide across overlapping scenes. It singles out the way the story examines the provocative refusal to swear loyalty to Hitler as both personal and philosophical. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/movies/a-hidden-life-review.html) ## The AV Club — Mike D'Angelo Rating C+. 12 December 2019. The film offers a hagiographic portrait of unwavering moral certitude with little internal doubt or drama, relying instead on stunning scenery and repetitive visual affectations. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/there-s-little-doubt-or-drama-in-terrence-malick-s-3-ho-1840393712) ## The Times — Tom Shone Rating ★★★. 19 January 2020. Three hours of soul-searching against breathtakingly cloud-enshrouded mountains yields treasures like rhythmic scythe movements and tender moments, but the figure of Franz has nothing to transcend and the film suffers from monotony. [Read the review](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/article/film-reviews-bombshell-a-hidden-life-9p6qvb8pn) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Fi1m's normalised score 50/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2019. Festival review. Malick's high-minded hymn to a modern saint never quite comes to life despite its serious intent. The director's signature ecstatic style encloses the conscientious objector in a hermetically sealed environment of heightened awareness. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/19/a-hidden-life-review-terrence-malicks-rhapsody-to-an-austrian-conscientious-objector) ## Film Comment — Sheila O'Malley Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 1 November 2019. The film is a meditation on faith and belief in God in a lunatic world, centered on the true story of Franz Jägerstätter's conscientious objection. It limits its scope by focusing on one man's spiritual protest in an isolated village, barely addressing the Holocaust, which weakens its power compared to Malick's other political films. [Read the review](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/the-big-screen-a-hidden-life/) ## The Hollywood Reporter — Todd McCarthy Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 19 May 2019. Festival review. Malick delivers an indulgent three-hour study of the conscientious objector that beautifies and flattens the material while avoiding deep exploration of the character's moral and religious inner life. [Read the review](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/a-hidden-life-review-1212083/) ## The New Yorker — Richard Brody Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 16 December 2019. The critic finds the film aridly theoretical and impersonal, a giant stumbling into self-parody with grandiosity that overwhelms the story’s noble specificity. It singles out the illustrative, effortful imagery and Central Casting Nazis as elements that turn the resistance narrative into a vague, bombastic exercise. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/when-bad-nazis-happen-to-good-directors-terrence-malicks-a-hidden-life) ## Deadline — Pete Hammond Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 December 2019. The critic calls it a masterpiece and says Malick is back in top form with an inspiring story of resistance to Hitler and Nazi Germany. The film is praised for serving a strong narrative with its true tale of conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter. [Read the review](https://deadline.com/video/a-hidden-life-review-terrence-malick-movie/) ## The Wrap — Steve Pond Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 December 2019. The critic says Malick gets his mojo back with this World War II drama, anchored in story in a way his recent movies have not been. It is hailed as the director’s most monumental work since “The Tree of Life,” a luminous and substantial addition to his filmography. [Read the review](https://www.thewrap.com/a-hidden-life-film-review-is-this-where-terrence-malick-gets-his-mojo-back/) ## Consequence — Clint Worthington Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 18 December 2019. The critic praises the film as Malick working at his peak, delivering a straightforward and spiritually rewarding meditation on God, morality, and steadfast conviction against fascism through rich visuals and a simple, compelling story. [Read the review](https://consequence.net/2019/12/film-review-with-a-hidden-life/) ## Polygon — Karen Han Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 20 May 2019. Festival review. The critic notes that the film proves Malick still has his mojo with gorgeous imagery and a more linear story about doing what is right, though it can feel somewhat shallow on subtext; the lead performances are compelling. [Read the review](https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/20/18631794/a-hidden-life-review-terrence-malick-cannes-2019/) ## /Film — Jason Gorber Rating 6.5/10. 20 May 2019. Festival review. The critic finds the film beautiful yet overlong and confounding, stretching a thin narrative over three hours with repetitive imagery. They single out the pastoral beauty and composition for admiration while noting complications in its portrayal of Nazis and historical representation. [Read the review](https://www.slashfilm.com/566528/a-hidden-life-review/) ## Collider — Gregory Ellwood Rating C. 19 May 2019. Festival review. The critic finds the film repetitive and aimless despite its beautiful visuals, suggesting it could lose an hour to tighten the narrative, though the final section is more compelling. The screenplay gives little depth to the lead actors. [Read the review](https://collider.com/a-hidden-life-review-terrence-malick/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/a-hidden-life.md