Paper Tiger 2026

“Let there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further.” It’s fitting that the Aeschylus quote on the opening of James Gray’s riveting Paper Tiger evokes Greek tragedy. In this piercing account of the American Dream in tatters, the magnitude of that dimension feels appropriate, echoing the currents of betrayal, fear and death that course through the film like rivulets of blood. 

Paper Tiger is a great-looking movie — cinematographer Joaquin Baca-Asay (who shot We Own the Night and Two Lovers for Gray) slathers on the dark, gritty textures while never stepping too far into noirish stylization. And editor Scott Morris delivers a compact cut of just under two hours that nonetheless breathes like an epic. While the obvious antecedents outside of Gray’s own body of work might be Coppola or Lumet or Scorsese or Mann, I kept thinking while watching of the early crime films of Akira Kurosawa, from Drunken Angel and Stray Dog up to the classic police procedural, High and Low.  

Gray and his superb cast are in blazing form and full command here in a bruising movie that reveals the heavy price of pursuing the American Dream too recklessly, instead of heeding Aeschylus’ words.

— David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter