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Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Live television going down in flames is always good for a laugh. Read more
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Dry comedies from eastern Europe tend to cast a skeptical eye on anything and everything, which is certainly the case with Corneliu Porumboiu's debut feature. Read more
Noel Murray, AV Club: Porumboiu starts off making a mordant slice of life, but he gradually entwines the personal and the historical, then ends on a poignant note. The story and situation are slight, but in the best possible way. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's a dark little ride, but at the end the lights hesitantly flicker back on. Read more
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: [It] builds a sly and unexpected human comedy out of a dispute over whether a revolution would still be a revolution if nobody showed up. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: 12:08 East of Bucharest is a shrewdly built comedy, but the characters are broad-verging-on-cheap unholy hick fools. Read more
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: 12:08 East of Bucharest is easier to admire than enjoy, funnier to describe than actually watch. Read more
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: First-time director Corneliu Porumboiu's political satire is uproariously funny and bitingly critical of social hypocrisy before and after Ceausescu, and of the new forms of mythmaking and corruption that have replaced Soviet-style autocracy. Read more
V.A. Musetto, New York Post: The most hilarious movie I've seen this year. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Corneliu Porumboiu's picture would submerge you in alcoholic despair if it weren't so damn funny. (That seems to be the Romanian mode of expression.) Read more
Leba Hertz, San Francisco Chronicle: 12:08 East of Bucharest cleverly takes on the aftermath of the December 1989 revolution in Romania that resulted in the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaucescu. It's a movie that seems simple, yet its subtle and brilliant complexity is not to be denied. Read more
David Fear, Time Out: Porumboiu's satire about history and short memories is a modest, deadpan masterpiece. Read more
Deborah Young, Variety: The buoyant little comedy 12:08 East of Bucharest puts its finger on the problem in the best tradition of East European humor, savvy but concrete, gentle but sharp as a knife. Read more
J. Hoberman, Village Voice: A casually bleak and neatly structured ensemble comedy -- at once deadpan and bemused. Read more
Philip Kennicott, Washington Post: It's easy to end a film with the idea that life goes on. It's extremely difficult to make the cliche the only possible, necessary and satisfying ending. Porumboiu's film does that. Read more