All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
A24 | Release Date: November 3, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonNov 27, 2023
Jackson tells Mack’s life in detailed close-up, and it is as if we are passing the years alongside her. Read full review
100
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 3, 2023
It announces right from the start that you are not just watching a movie. You’re experiencing an immersive portrait of a life and a landscape intertwined, and entering what feels like a feature-length sense memory. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 2, 2023
This is a movie that teaches you how to watch it. Read full review
100
The New York TimesLisa KennedyNov 2, 2023
Exquisite use of close-ups, fluid editing and a deeply observant sound design renders Mack’s story tactile but also poetic, making plain that the salt here is the stuff of tears, the stuff of sorrows and of joys. Read full review
100
ColliderChase HutchinsonFeb 3, 2023
When all the echoes which Jackson delicately explores come into harmony, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt strikes a resonant chord that will be heard for time eternal. Read full review
100
The PlaylistRobert DanielsJan 24, 2023
When Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt forms its full portrait, pulling together these seemingly disparate images for seismic import, the film is a treasure of community, a bold depiction of Black life, and a sumptuously crafted piece of personal storytelling that rises above tropes and cliches toward a piercing intimacy. Read full review
100
TheWrapCarlos AguilarJan 24, 2023
Jackson is the epitome of a filmmaker whose gaze truly makes everything seem previously unseen. By walking alongside her characters, indeed the salt of the earth, we experience what was always there with brand new wisdom. Read full review
91
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 26, 2023
For relying on the barest narrative threads, watching All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is more an experience of transformative renewal than gleaning specific details of Mack’s story. Read full review
90
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJan 30, 2023
The film puts people and their surroundings, the moments of grand drama and the moments of contemplative solitude, in a state of spiritual equality. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesJan 25, 2023
In poetic fashion, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt asks for interpretation, making ordinary explanations unnecessary. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 10, 2023
While there are plenty of influences afoot, ranging from Jenkins to Terrence Malick to Toni Morrison, “All Dirt Roads” is guided, fragment by fragment, by a new director’s way of seeing and listening to a woman’s life — in all its puzzle pieces. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloNov 3, 2023
Written and directed by Jackson, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is a poetic memoir of Mack’s life. Memories will appear one after another from her youngest days to her gray-haired years, non-sequentially, creating a winding road that bobs and weaves through mundane and life-defining moments alike. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenOct 30, 2023
A work of astonishing tactility, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt reminds us that what we remember—what might matter most as corporeal beings—is not word or even story, but touch. Read full review
85
Paste MagazineJacob OllerJan 30, 2023
If you assent, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is endlessly rewarding, a tactile sense-memory tapestry of all the things that matter. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesNov 3, 2023
“All Dirt Roads” is difficult to firmly grasp, sometimes frustratingly so, but its textures linger. Read full review
80
VarietyJessica KiangJan 24, 2023
If “All Dirt Roads” perhaps does not connect quite as powerfully as it could on a narrative level, it marks the arrival of an arresting new talent in Raven Jackson, at the very least as the creator of the kind of cinema you do not watch as much as touch and smell and taste. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 8, 2023
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt doesn’t just announce a promising new talent in Jackson. It serves as a shimmering, dreamlike reminder that movies are as good for poetry as for prose. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrNov 1, 2023
Nature provides much of the soundtrack to All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, a poised and occasionally transcendent debut from writer-director Raven Jackson. Read full review
70
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiJan 25, 2023
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt’s non-linear approach requires patience and its character development is a bit thin, but the film is stunning, thought-provoking, and poignant, with each frame lovingly executed. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJan 24, 2023
The vague but vividly rendered All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt runs a little drier every time writer-director Raven Jackson loops back to squeeze another drop of meaning from the textures and traditions that connect a Black Mississippi woman to the place where she was born (and vice-versa). Read full review
60
The GuardianAdrian HortonJan 30, 2023
It may not always land and gets lost in itself on the way there, but Jackson has crafted a beautiful experiment indicative of ambitious vision, one whose magic outweighs its weaknesses. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineBrad HanfordOct 6, 2023
Comparisons to the work of Terrence Malick and Julie Dash are inevitable, but Raven Jackson’s search for the sublime lacks both the rich philosophical inquiries of the former and the dense, lived-in specificity of the latter. Read full review
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