Critics’ reviews

Sound of Falling (2025)

22 reviews from 22 publications. Critics’ score 84: 19 positive, 3 mixed, 0 negative.

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84
Positive
19
Mixed
3
Negative
0

Most critics respond warmly to Sound of Falling, praising Mascha Schilinski’s direction and its account of suffering across generations of women. Praise centres on the drifting camerawork, intricate shifts in time and sound design, which connect the women’s experiences and create a persistent sense of unease. The fragmented storytelling is widely seen as emotionally revealing, while Slant Magazine also singles out Lena Urzendowsky’s complex performance as Angelika.

The reservations concern patience, clarity and the film’s unrelenting bleakness, with a wide gap between the enthusiastic majority and a small mixed minority. Even admirers acknowledge that the slow pace and elusive plot can frustrate. The Wrap finds the complexity and fatalism overbearing despite admiring the visual flourishes. Collider makes the sharper objection that the women are reduced to their trauma without enough being said about it, though it still praises the sensory direction.

Evening Standard
6 March 2026 · ★★★★★ · Nick Howells
100

Howells calls the film a startling, hauntingly beautiful work and a singular coming-of-age tale. He especially praises its breathtaking imagery and the uncanny details that linger in the memory.

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Time Out
18 February 2026 · ★★★★★ · David Hughes
100

The review calls the film stunning, praising its heady blend of superstition and folklore. It singles out the way transgenerational trauma and repressed sexuality flow through the story.

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Sight and Sound
3 March 2026 · BFI
95*

The critic calls the film brilliant, horrifying and breathtaking, despite its difficult subject matter. They praise its exquisitely controlled, fragmented form for making patriarchal violence across generations feel like a relentless cycle.

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Vulture
14 May 2025 · festival review · Alison Willmore
95*

Willmore calls the film astonishing and says it sets a high bar for the Cannes competition. She praises its impressionistic, intimate approach to four generations of women and their often-unrecorded experiences.

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IndieWire
12 January 2026 · A- · David Ehrlich
90

Ehrlich praises the film as a mesmerizing, emotionally rich portrait of recurring girlhood pain across generations. He singles out its haunting use of sense memory and its prismatic, time-folding style.

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Los Angeles Times
23 January 2026 · Tim Grierson
90*

The critic calls the film an astonishing, elusive marvel that transforms its viewer. He praises its spectral cinematography and deftly interwoven portraits of women across generations.

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Screen Daily
14 May 2025 · festival review · Wendy Ide
90*

The critic calls the film a striking, thrillingly ambitious work and says it announces Schilinski as a director of note. She especially praises the assured direction, visual beauty and soundscape that binds the generations’ stories.

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The AV Club
16 January 2026 · A- · Katie Rife
90

Rife finds the film transcendentally beautiful, though its slow, rigorous approach may test some viewers’ patience. She praises the exquisite visual style and haunting sound design for creating its dreamy, unnerving atmosphere.

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The New Yorker
20 November 2025 · Justin Chang
90*

Chang praises the film as disorienting, enveloping, and brilliantly crafted. He singles out Schilinski’s shifting camera and time structure for making the story’s generational traumas feel newly vivid.

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Variety
14 May 2025 · festival review · Guy Lodge
90*

The critic calls the film an astonishing, ambitious achievement that marks a major step forward for Mascha Schilinski. They praise its intricate intergenerational storytelling and its carefully crafted visual and sonic atmosphere.

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Slant Magazine
12 September 2025 · ★★★½/4 · Pat Brown
88

The review finds the film haunting and poetic, portraying the past as an onerous weight on the present. It praises Lena Urzendowsky’s complex portrayal of Angelika and the film’s visual and audio motifs linking generations.

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The Hollywood Reporter
14 May 2025 · festival review · Jordan Mintzer
85*

Mintzer calls the film a transfixing, audacious work that rewards patient viewers, though its fragmented structure may frustrate those seeking a clear plotline. He praises Schilinski’s visual connections across generations and her portrait of young women carrying their forebears’ histories.

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Little White Lies
festival review · Hannah Strong
78*

Strong finds the film ambitious, compelling and willing to trust its audience despite its deliberate opacity. She particularly praises its atmospheric cinematography and the way it evokes the women’s shared histories.

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The Guardian
14 May 2025 · festival review · Peter Bradshaw
75*

Bradshaw finds the film powerfully unsettling, dense with fear and sadness. He singles out its clammy atmosphere, created through drifting camerawork and a throbbing, disquieting soundtrack.

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The Observer
18 May 2025 · festival review · Xan Brooks
75*

Brooks praises the film as elegant, studied and pitiless. He singles out its folding of a century of family history to illuminate women’s lives on a harsh German farm.

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Film Comment
festival review · Shonni Enelow
70*

The dispatch presents the film positively as a bracing treatment of a recurring image. It singles out its literalist approach to the self-drowned woman, discussed alongside The Currents.

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Deadline
14 May 2025 · festival review · Damon Wise
95*

The critic calls the film an exhilarating, all-time-great achievement, though it can be frustrating and challenging. He praises its hypnotic atmosphere, restless camerawork, and distinctive sound design.

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Eye for Film
29 September 2025 · Anne-Katrin Titze
90*

The critic praises the film as a powerful, inventive portrait of women’s lives and memories across generations. She especially singles out its haunting imagery of eels and the way the farmhouse’s spaces carry echoes of past suffering.

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The Skinny
2 March 2026 · ★★★★ · Eleanor Capaldi
80

The review finds the film an intricate and oppressive exploration of generational trauma. It praises the child’s point of view and the way the film’s interwoven timelines reveal hidden truths.

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The Playlist
14 May 2025 · festival review
64*

The article appears to be a review, but its text is unavailable, so the critic's verdict cannot be established. No specific praise or complaint can be reliably identified.

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Collider
14 May 2025 · 5/10 · Emma Kiely
50

Kiely finds the film excessively grim and argues that it reduces its characters to trauma without developing a meaningful message. She praises Schilinski’s sensory direction, especially the sound design and shifts in perspective.

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The Wrap
14 May 2025 · festival review
50*

The critic finds the film intriguing but overburdened by its complexity and fatalistic tone. They praise its visual flourishes, including match-cuts, visual echoes and bravura long takes.

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Ordered by the weight we give each publication, then by score. Scores are normalised to 100; * means inferred from an unrated review. Summaries are ours, not quotations; follow the links for the reviews themselves. How we rate