The Mastermind, a film about stealing artwork, appears to be stealing critics’ hearts. The brand new heist movie options Josh O’Connor, identified for movies like God’s Personal Nation (2017), Emma (2020), La chimera (2023), and Challengers (2024). He additionally stars within the upcoming Wake Up Useless Man: A Knives Out Thriller.
Forward of its theatrical launch on October 17, The Mastermind has debuted with a 90% rating from the critics and is Licensed Recent on Rotten Tomatoes. The film has 50 critiques on the time of writing, so its rating may fluctuate as extra are revealed. Its viewers rating also needs to start to take form as soon as it releases in theaters this Friday.
Written and directed by Kelly Reichardt, identified for minimalist sluggish cinema, The Mastermind stars Josh O’Connor as a suburban household man within the Seventies who secretly leads a double life as an artwork thief, focusing on works by Arthur Dove, impressed by the true 1972 Worcester Artwork Museum heist in Massachusetts.
Along with Emmy winner Josh O’Connor (The Crown), the solid additionally contains Alana Haim (Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza and One Battle After One other), three-time Emmy nominees Hope Davis (Succession), Gaby Hoffmann (Women, Clear), two-time Emmy nominee Invoice Camp (The Evening Of, Presumed Harmless), and John Magaro (Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow and Exhibiting Up).
This previous Could, The Mastermind premiered on the 2025 Cannes Movie Competition, the place it was nominated for the Palme d’Or, the very best prize awarded on the pageant. With a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film is receiving overwhelmingly constructive critiques from critics. In ScreenRant‘s The Mastermind evaluation, Gregory Nussen writes:
Kelly Reichardt’s heist movie is a wry critique of political avoidance… The Mastermind makes use of the trimmings of a heist movie to discover the isolation of staying impartial throughout a time of cultural and political unrest.
In any other case, the critiques spotlight Kelly Reichardt’s distinctive and understated strategy to a heist story – praising the movie’s quiet observational type, meticulous interval element, and Josh O’Connor’s magnetic efficiency as a hapless artwork thief. The Mastermind is being celebrated for reworking a easy caper right into a layered character research that displays societal malaise, Seventies Americana, and human flaws whereas avoiding typical heist tropes.
Many observe the movie’s dry humor and delicate surprises, which can reward affected person viewers. In flip, some reviewers warning that Reichardt’s minimalist type and sluggish pacing might problem informal audiences, with a number of critics discovering the movie’s emotional engagement weaker in comparison with her earlier works. But, even when thought of “minor Reichardt,” the movie’s attraction, ironic tone, and poetic quietness shine via.
General, The Mastermind is seen as an clever, fashionable, and barely offbeat heist film that blends humor, melancholy, and historic texture right into a memorable cinematic expertise.
- Launch Date
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October 17, 2025
- Runtime
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110 minutes
- Director
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Kelly Reichardt
- Writers
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Kelly Reichardt
- Producers
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Anish Savjani, Neil Kopp, Vincent Savino
