Name : Sandy Cohen / Alias : Associated Press
Villeneuve has crafted a compelling, unflinching look at the deadly and complicated war on drugs, one that will challenge the attitudes of even the most straight-edged and law-abiding viewers.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Denis Villeneuve's film turns out to be a stupendously unnerving descent into moral chaos, our presumed action hero Alice in Cartel-land.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
A gripping and tension-packed spin through America's covert War on Drugs. Prepare to be haunted for a good long time.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
This is one of the best movies of the year.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
This dramatic thriller finds a spot somewhere between your brain and your stomach, and drills in.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
Director Denis Villeneuve delivers screenwriter Taylor Sheridan's story layer by layer, never overwhelming the audience while still challenging it to pay attention.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
'Prisoners' director Denis Villeneuve returns with a blisteringly suspenseful, ever surprising cartel thriller.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Time Out
Denis Villeneuve takes on the Mexican drug trade in this stern, robust, abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter thriller.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
If the film is a little too macho and far too Anglo to tell the full, ugly story of all the villains and victims, it is, like all of Villeneuve's films, a bravura piece of filmmaking.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
A well-deserved showcase for Emily Blunt.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Sicario paints the bleakest of portraits of a realistic situation, drawn from headlines about Mexican cartels that stack bodies with savage efficiency.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
Sicario is a remarkable, thrilling, intermittently brilliant film-and yet nonetheless a mild disappointment.

Name : Mike D'Angelo / Alias : AV Club
One can easily ignore the film's ambitious subtext and enjoy it strictly on the basis of its terrific performances and nonstop intensity.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
This is suspenseful stuff, but hanging over the action is the pungent smell of social failure, as the drug war turns both sides into monsters.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Succeeds in evoking the anarchic violence of the drug wars raging on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
By the end, it packs a death stare so potent it will make you want to turn a blind eye to the shadowy brutality of its real-world horrors.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Director Denis Villeneuve, aided and abetted by cinematographer Roger Deakins, fills Sicario with dread and a violence that happens to be stunning to look at.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
After a while these sounds and images start to feel like expressions of technique, and they become at once numbing and sensational, and instead of a movie about violence we're watching another violent movie, after all.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
There are no rules, and no reason, in this world of death and revenge, and we see it through Kate's eyes: fascinated, repelled, ultimately haunted.

Name : Barry Hertz / Alias : Globe and Mail
We can thank Villeneuve and rookie screenwriter Taylor Sheridan's tight script, but also Blunt, Brolin and Del Toro, each of whom has never been better.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Within this dark epic of American failure lives an effective but decidedly minor vigilante flick.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Villeneuve, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Johann Johannsson combine to make the action scenes gorgeous, scary and exciting, while the script by Taylor Sheridan is mordant and smart, with not a wasted word.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
An unforgettable motion picture that should be on the must-see list for anyone who appreciates films that deal in grays rather than blacks and whites.

Name : Mark Olsen / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Directed by Denis Villeneuve from a script by Taylor Sheridan, the film manages to somehow be sleek and sprawling, focused and cagey at the same time, often in the same scene.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
Villeneuve's proven he's got a strong punch. The trouble is, he barely aims.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
[Villeneuve] hasn't forgotten that he's making a thriller, and he's made one that's both nerve-shatteringly suspenseful and, thanks to noted cinematographer Roger Deakins, gorgeous to watch.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Mixes arthouse and grindhouse into a most satisfying cocktail.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Villeneuve's movies occupy a spectrum between thought-provoking and mind-bending, and it's clear that he wants to guide Taylor Sheridan's script into similar territory.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Far from being just another crime story, "Sicario" is cinema at its most ambitious.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
With a taut and timely screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, Sicario is a brilliant action thriller with the smarts of a message movie.

Name : Dana Stevens / Alias : Slate
Sicario opens on a power chord of fear, nausea, and dread that resonates throughout the whole movie.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
The first hour of this latest film from French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve is sleek, terrific pulp.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
Villeneuve handles action scenes with impressive flair, but also understands that the key to effective action is to build up to it slowly and inexorably.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
If "Sicario" does not collapse under its own grimness, that is because of the pulse: the care with which Villeneuve keeps the story beating, like a drum, as he steadies himself for the next set piece.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
This is not the first movie about the war being waged across the U.S.-Mexico border over the drug trade, but it's the first film in which the aura of constant menace and threat lingers and follows you home.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan aren't selling more than a tautological action movie with the dread and body count of a horror film.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It has a screenplay of freshness and audacity that's brought to life by a director who understands its every psychological undercurrent. We might hope this kind of thing would happen all the time, but it's rare.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Combining relentless action with the story of a woman confronting a corrupted system, it hits with the staggering energy of a visceral kick in the guts - causing a sensory recoil in every scene.