Another Year
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: December 29, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
31
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 8, 2023
The power of this film creeps up on you by stealth; its dramatic idiom is admittedly mannered in the Leigh style but shy of caricature, and designed consistently to abrade the audience's consciousness without irritating – fingertips down the blackboard, not fingernails. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 14, 2011
Extracting big drama out of small events is Mike Leigh's forte, and with his latest little masterpiece, Another Year, the English director pushes himself to the extreme. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesJan 13, 2011
A brief but piercing cameo by Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake), as a desolate old woman who fiercely rejects professional counseling for depression, drives home Leigh's greatest insight, that true happiness is not found but realized. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJan 12, 2011
Leigh's Another Year is like a long, purifying soak in empathy. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJan 5, 2011
What it does have is an overwhelming bittersweet melancholy at the passing of life from middle age into…well, you could call it late middle age. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 30, 2010
A quintessential Mike Leigh performance. It deepens as it goes along until, in the end, in its final close-up, it overwhelms. Read full review
100
New York PostKyle SmithDec 29, 2010
Getting a small cohort of humanity dead right is an impressive artistic achievement, but Mike Leigh's beautifully modulated English drama Another Year advances even farther. Read full review
100
EmpireKim NewmanDec 28, 2010
Measured in pace, yet thoroughly gripping and completely accessible. The title soft-sells the picture, but it's among the best of this or any year. And Manville should clear some shelf space for well-deserved awards. Read full review
100
Time OutKeith UhlichDec 22, 2010
These characters are more than what we see on the surface, and it's thanks to Leigh's rigorous yet generous eye that we never just gawk at the drama. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonDec 28, 2010
The performances are winning, the story is surprising without relying on unlikely twists, and the relationships are the richest and most nuanced since Leigh's "Secrets & Lies." Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 14, 2011
The acting is uniformly terrific, just a marvel to watch. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanFeb 5, 2011
You may not realize the imprint it has left until its last season comes to a close. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsFeb 3, 2011
This humane movie is an ode to joy, albeit of the mature sort. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldConnie OgleFeb 3, 2011
A script that deftly fleshes out characters and mimics reality shockingly well. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyJan 27, 2011
It all comes down to affirmation vs. denial. Leigh chooses affirmation. And the result is life-affirming. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisJan 20, 2011
Like "Life Is Sweet," "Secrets & Lies," and yes, 1971's "Bleak Moments," to name but three of Leigh's 10 semi-improvised character studies, Another Year is another frowning comedy. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 30, 2010
Love and loneliness are presented, in almost equal parts, with subdued precision in the richly abundant Another Year. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 29, 2010
Just watch the magnificent Manville, in a raw and riveting award-class performance that exposes a grieving heart under siege. Her last scene is quietly devastating. So is this intimate miracle of a movie. Read full review
85
MovielineMichelle OrangeDec 29, 2010
It's as subversive and penetrating a treatment of the British character as we get on the big screen, and it's why I don't mind that Leigh keeps them coming 'round with the reliability of the cocktail hour. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevyJan 27, 2011
Very good Leigh -- maybe even, given Manville's heroic work, great Leigh. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 29, 2010
It may sound commonplace, but in the hands of master filmmaker Mike Leigh, the everyday becomes extraordinary. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanDec 29, 2010
The perfect haven from the cheap ironies and cruel indifference we all have to field both in life and, far too often, at the movies. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 29, 2010
Splendidly rich and wise. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineRichard MoweDec 28, 2010
Mike Leigh has a knack of making the ordinary extraordinary. Here he deals with themes of class, family and depression over a period of a year, breaking it up into seasonal chapters. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 28, 2010
Another year, another Mike Leigh gem. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallFeb 2, 2011
I'm not sure there's anything else to take away from this film besides Manville's performance and gratitude that we aren't these people. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreJan 26, 2011
In Mary, Leigh has found the polar opposite of Sally Hawkin's giggle-through-the-pain heroine of "Happy-Go-Lucky." Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 22, 2011
Another Year allows viewers to occupy both psychic spaces, nesting into the warm comforts of a long-lived-in home and then, on a dime, seeing it through the searching eyes of the marginalized figures that, over the course of 11 films, Leigh has so often championed. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 14, 2011
A gutsy movie, in that Leigh says something about life that nobody really wants to believe, and he says it forcefully: There is such a thing as "too late." Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 13, 2011
For all the warmth emanating from the film's core, thanks to Broadbent and Sheen, I don't know if Leigh has ever made a crueler picture. Read full review
75
NPRElla TaylorDec 28, 2010
Another Year is a stacked deck of a movie that draws a harshly unforgiving, sometimes smug line between boomers who've made good and those who've fallen by the wayside. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 30, 2010
Mike Leigh's latest film preserves the mystery of why another marriage has flourished over decades. That's not the stated subject of Another Year, but it's at the center of this enjoyable though insistently schematic comedy. Read full review
50
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottFeb 4, 2011
Many scenes, like Another Year itself, don't actually go anywhere. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 10, 2011
I know that we are meant to be drawn into the undergrowth of these ordinary lives, and the long tale is neatly split into four symbolic seasons;...But do they and their fellow-Brits honestly swell the heart, or do they grate, exasperate, and finally grind us down? Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterRay BennettDec 28, 2010
Acutely observed but gloomy and lacking narrative, it tells of 12 months in the life of a decent but dull suburban couple and their friends, most of whom you would go out of your way to avoid at a party. Read full review
10
Village VoiceKarina LongworthDec 28, 2010
I haven't seen a film this year that so openly invited me to revile each and every one of its characters-and I reviewed "The Human Centipede." Read full review
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