Dark Waters
Focus Features | Release Date: November 22, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonNov 26, 2019
The brilliance of Dark Waters is that it is able to lay out the case against DuPont without getting too wonky. Read full review
100
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 26, 2019
A great movie like Dark Waters reminds us of what happened, of just what the “system” failed to do to safeguard us. And it reminds us of what a legal crusade looks like — a years-long grind of discovery, depositions, evidence and trials, and to be thankful for dogged, dull pluggers like Robert Bilott who stopped a mass murder in progress, armed with only a degree from “a no name law school.” Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 22, 2019
Riveting, responsible and deeply unsettling, a first-rate film like Dark Waters is a rare and welcome chapter in the dramatic fabric of how one unlikely person can make a big dent in the world of social injustice. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanNov 13, 2019
What gives Dark Waters its singular texture is that Todd Haynes (“Carol,” “Far From Heaven”), who has never made a drama remotely like this, colors in the scenario with an underlying dimension of personalized obsession. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansMar 31, 2020
Ruffalo optioned the rights to Nathaniel Rich’s original article and has an executive producer credit on the film; clearly, he has a stake in the material. The actor is excellent as reluctant hero Bilott, muting his natural charisma to create a character who is both taciturn and generous, determined but socially ill at ease. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 5, 2020
This is the kind of issue-driven cinema that used to win Oscars. That Dark Waters and Just Mercy weren’t mentioned during awards season is as troubling as it is perplexing. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 27, 2020
Dark Waters is a movie that works marvellously well within its own generic terms, and perhaps after the fey disappointment of Todd Haynes’s previous, rather insufferable fantasy Wonderstruck, this tough, clear movie was what Haynes needed to clear his creative palate. Read full review
80
Film ThreatBradley GibsonDec 23, 2019
Haynes carefully navigates the risky terrain of presenting real people (who are still among us) and facts in a scripted feature film, artfully blurring the lines between documentary and drama. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 26, 2019
Haynes plays up the melodrama, and the film moves along without a lot of surprises. But that gives it a certain momentum — a momentum personified by Bilott in the storage room, sorting through boxes. It’s not flashy, but it’s how you get the job done. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 22, 2019
The bad guys have all the money but at least we have indie filmmakers and movie stars like Ruffalo (who vigorously and successfully campaigned to keep the frackers out of New York that caused havoc across the Delaware from him in Pennsylvania). Dark Waters is hardly a cure, but it keeps the issue aboveground. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 22, 2019
What makes it a Haynes film, besides the evocative camera genius of Haynes regular Ed Lachman, is something intangible and mysterious. The director’s admirers will think immediately of "Safe," the 1995 indie classic starring Julianne Moore as a wife and mother who thinks she’s being poisoned by something unidentifiable in the environment. That feeling of dread pervades throughout, and deepens the film’s scarily timely themes beyond the usual demands of docudrama. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 21, 2019
Mr. Haynes, a notable stylist whose work is sometimes tinged with surrealism, was an improbable choice to direct this material, though a fine one, as it turns out. Like Rob, the film isn’t flashy, but it is honorable, admirable and improbably stirring. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 21, 2019
The combination of Ruffalo’s quietly intense performance and Haynes’ direction illuminates both what drives him and what the cost can be. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 18, 2019
The director Todd Haynes’s artistry is hardly detectable in this environmental thriller, yet the film, based on a true story, nonetheless offers a stirring and infuriating story of brazen corporate indifference to employees, neighbors, and the world at large—and the obstacles faced by those who challenge it. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyNov 13, 2019
Successfully restraining himself throughout from getting fancy or experimental, Haynes has intently devoted himself to the story and his actors, with strong, unshowy work that ideally serves the tale being told. Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganNov 13, 2019
The subtle brilliance of its mise-en-scene, from 1980s Ohio boardrooms and rubber-chicken dinners to all-black wait staff and the casual discrimination against women, beds the story in the awful truth. Read full review
75
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJan 3, 2020
We’re served both the galvanization and the despair, the victories eked out bit by painful bit and the looming defeat, as an implacable monolith dismisses puny mortal concerns like so many gnats. It’s tough stuff, but it’s worthy stuff too. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 5, 2019
Mark Ruffalo is a master at playing a certain type of earnest character who often wears a quizzical expression — not because he’s slow on the uptake, but because he’s the smartest person in the room and he has questions no one else has even thought to ask. Read full review
75
Original-CinLiam LaceyDec 5, 2019
While Dark Waters is something of a let-down for a Haynes film, it’s otherwise sturdy enough. One can admire the commitment of Ruffalo, who plays the role of the modest, decent, semi-accidental hero without vanity or trite psychology. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 29, 2019
It will make you mad as hell. So angry, even, that you might wonder why no one has given this opportunity to Todd Haynes before. Read full review
75
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 22, 2019
As a piece of pure exposition, Dark Waters is interesting enough. But around the hard work and do-goodery, Haynes also provides a sense of crushing dread—the kind of unsolvable paranoia these procedure-bound movies usually work to counter. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzNov 22, 2019
At its most controlled and insinuating, Dark Waters is reminiscent of paranoid thrillers from the 1970s like "The Parallax View" and "Chinatown," where you know going in that you're going to see a story about how profoundly bad things are, thanks to corporate influence over government as well as the economy, but the extent of the corruption is still shocking. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleNov 21, 2019
Where Haynes excels is in teasing out the personal and professional connections that mingle throughout. Read full review
75
The Film StageGlenn Heath Jr.Nov 13, 2019
While Dark Waters often suffers mightily for being so inert, it always manages to circumvent lulls by embracing Bilott’s persistence, which works as an anecdote to corporate America, whose stranglehold over the country comes through in Edward Lachman’s deathly grey visuals defined by lifeless rural vistas. Read full review
75
The PlaylistLuke HicksNov 13, 2019
It’ll be much too easy to bail on what is a very slow-building first 30 minutes for those watching on a streaming service in the near future. If they make it an hour in, they’ll be pleased to know that John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is prominently featured, as any West Virginia film seems obligated to boast. But outside of that, the lack of respite is rightly suffocating and will be unfortunately repelling for those who approach film as a mindless escape. Read full review
70
TheWrapRobert AbeleNov 13, 2019
In Haynes’s psychologically and atmospherically astute compositions and careful nursing of the emotional impact on Bilott and wife Sarah (Anne Hathaway), it’s more a brittle ache of a quest than a righteous melodrama. Read full review
67
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonNov 14, 2019
As legal dramas go, it’s quite good; as a Todd Haynes film, you struggle to see the talent for which he’s known. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnNov 13, 2019
As a platform for Bilot’s efforts and why they deserve a national profile, the movie has a sincere sense of purpose. It’s a 20-year-old drama that extends into the present, and as environmental concerns continue to escalate, it couldn’t feel more contemporary. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattNov 13, 2019
These Waters never quite run as strong or as deep as they should. Read full review
65
CNNBrian LowryNov 22, 2019
Beyond the fundamental horror of corporate greed trumping public-health concerns, the movie -- while often bleak and unsettling -- does find hope in the idea that one ordinary guy can make a difference. Dark Waters' message, though, is something bigger -- namely, that turning the tide is a task that will ultimately require a commitment from all of us. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 26, 2019
Ruffalo, as a character more polished and reserved than he usually plays, is compelling as ever; he’s able to convey the sense of time passing, with the case weighing down on him more heavily as years slip by. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanNov 26, 2019
Dark Waters is an effective outrage machine: If you like “Erin Brockovich,” you’ll probably like this too. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJoshua RowinNov 14, 2019
Todd Haynes’s film intermittently hits upon a few original ways of representing its ripped-from-the-headlines mandate. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerFeb 24, 2020
A bizarrely strait-laced project for Todd Haynes, Dark Waters lacks dramatic oomph but compensates via a well-mounted telling of a terrifying story, driven by still contemporary concerns and a convincing central turn by Mark Ruffalo. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 21, 2019
You do feel Haynes’s touch now and again, particularly in the sense of menace that seeps into a crepuscular law office and in the everyday eeriness that suffuses outwardly ordinary homes that are anything but normal. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 15, 2019
Of course we all hate insidious environmental destruction; it’s valuable to have movies about that. This one works fine enough. But let the other less-talented filmmakers make them. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 13, 2019
Dark Waters would likely have been a forgettable mediocrity in anybody’s hands, given its fact-based, muckraking limitations. Coming from the visionary who gave us Safe, Far From Heaven, I’m Not There, and Carol, it’s a crushing disappointment. Read full review
40
Film ThreatAlex SavelievDec 20, 2019
Scenes involving Anne Hathaway in particular land with a painful thud. In an attempt to flesh out the “adoring, supporting wife” role, Haynes shoots himself in the foot, bringing much attention to an underdeveloped character, who, despite all the pseudo-feminist speeches, amounts to, yes, the “adoring, supporting wife.” Read full review
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