pure energy and grungy voltage, and the Safdies make it look very easy. This will be the year's most exciting film." Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times: "Directed with relentless tension and diamond-hard intelligence by Josh and Benny Safdie (who earlier this month won directing honors from the New York Film Critics Circle), Uncut Gems is a thriller and a character study, a tragedy and a blast." Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film a grade of A, calling it "a riveting high-wire act, pairing cosmic visuals with the gritty energy of a dark psychological thriller and sudden bursts of frantic comedy". Jake Cole of Slant Magazine gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, writing, "As in Good Time, Uncut Gems finds the Safdies working in a genre rooted in the grimy, character-oriented crime films of the '70s." Radheyan Simonpillai of Now commented that "there's so much propulsive, forward momentum even when the characters never get anywhere." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Many will agree that this is Sandler's best performance, and the Safdies will finally move from the fringes of the commercial film scene to somewhere closer to the center." In her round-up of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Wendy Ide of The Guardian ranked Uncut Gems as one of the best films of the year, calling it "Audacious, thrilling and exhausting" and Sandler's "remarkable performance" as one of the best performances of the year, and praising the cinematography. Kevin Garnett's performance was also praised, with Brady Langmann of Esquire calling it the year's best breakout performance, and Alan Siegel writing on The Ringer that it was "one of the best acting performances by an athlete ever." Accolades The film was highly rated on many critics end of year top lists, and Metacritic compiled those mentions and ranked the film 5th overall for 2019. Uncut Gems was ranked by The A.V. Club as the 92nd-best film of the 2010s. Reaction to award nominations Critics and commentators considered Sandler to be a viable contender to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Uncut Gems. During a December 2019 interview with Howard Stern, Sandler jokingly promised to make the "worst movie ever" if he did not win an Oscar for Uncut Gems and said, "If I don't get it, I'm going to... come back and do one again that is