4 stars out of 4 -- "One doesn't leave the movie with a mind blown by visual bedazzlement but with a soul shattered by the profound sense of tragedy Linklater and company so beautifully put across."
Premiere 3 stars out of 5 -- "Embedded in the visionary headtrip of A SCANNER DARKLY is a hotly political call to arms."
Rolling Stone 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he animation is at once startlingly realistic and surreal, conveying the story's heightened atmosphere of paranoia."
Box Office "Mr. Linklater uses the animation technique called rotoscoping to translate Mr. Dick's worldview, mostly to fine expressive effect."
New York Times 4 stars out of 5 -- "Linklater's skewed sensibilities interlock lovingly with Dick's paranoid sci-fry..."
Total Film "[T]his feature-length hallucination of a flick pulsates with enticing contradictions and wayward logic."
Sight and Sound 4 stars out of 4 -- "[O]ne of cinema's funniest, most frightening, and ultimately most moving meditations on the chemically altered life."
Uncut Ranked #12 in Film Comment's "20 Best Films Of 2006."
Film Comment 4 stars out of 5 -- "Among the finest Philip K. Dick-derived films, this finds Richard Linklater assembling a fistful of mainstream rebel icons..."
Empire
