Earth Mama
A24 | Release Date: July 7, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comPeyton RobinsonJul 21, 2023
Bolstered by expert empathy, understated direction, and evocative performances, Earth Mama highlights resilience while whispers of social misogynoir are incorporated without abandon and confronted head-on by the film’s women. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 13, 2023
If the filmmaking feels poetic and subdued, it’s the opposite of coy. Leaf is confident enough to let her images, as much as her written dialogue, do much of the narrative lifting. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 13, 2023
There are moments in Earth Mama, a drama about motherhood at its most fragile, when the movie’s quiet intensity seems to settle in your chest, as if a heavy stone had been placed over your heart. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeJan 25, 2023
Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama is a melancholic story transformed into a precious portrait by the director’s generous and nurturing eye. She digs into the familiar landscape of a Black mother facing an oppressive legal system and pulls from it the most unexpected and humanizing details. She observes them with a loving curiosity, and then asks viewers to do the same. Read full review
89
TheWrapRonda Racha PenriceJan 25, 2023
By putting a mirror to Gia and placing us in her feet, shoes or not, Leaf beckons viewers to contemplate how contemporary society fails its Gias every single day, to face how this cycle of poverty continues, and to understand that Gia and women like her can’t conquer it alone. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJul 27, 2023
Earth Mama taps into a primal understanding of motherhood that’s true for Gia, whether she is a “good” mother or not. The movie captures what it means to be a mother of any kind, faced with watching your children being torn from their roots. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineGregory NussenJun 30, 2023
Despite Earth Mama’s bleak subject matter, it exudes a beatific warmth, in large part because Leaf takes remarkable pains to dramatize a web of solidarity between a group of Black women alongside her depiction of the very system that disenfranchises them. Read full review
85
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganJul 10, 2023
There’s still an element of unshakable realism embedded in the film’s core, owed greatly to the largely non-professional Bay Area actors that form Gia’s immediate social circle and Nomore’s resonant performance. But Earth Mama is strongest when it indulges in Leaf’s sharp cinematic sensibility. Read full review
83
ColliderRoss BonaimeAug 4, 2023
In Earth Mama, Savanah Leaf gives us a towering reminder of the women who gave their all for us, their determination and power, the difficulties of staying afloat when you feel like you’re drowning, and how we can’t truly know what other people are struggling with, no matter how hard we try. Read full review
83
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 25, 2023
Brimming with an inner life and an authenticity that shouldn’t be undervalued due to its tough subject matter, Leaf’s debut is a film without a single false note. Read full review
83
IndieWireRyan LattanzioJan 25, 2023
What sounds, on paper, like a challenging sit is actually a wondrous 97-minute feature, whose director and star are obviously poised for greatness. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeDec 11, 2023
It’s bleak at times, but there is a defiantly celebratory aspect to the film, which finds hope in the solidarity of Black women and dignity in Gia’s quiet stoicism. Read full review
80
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsDec 7, 2023
On the evidence of the astonishingly-assured debut, Earth Mama, we’ll be seeing work from writer-director Savanah Leaf for many years to come. Read full review
80
Time OutNila VarmanDec 7, 2023
Humane to the last, Earth Mama is a vital but all-too-rare exploration of Black motherhood struggling on the margins of American society. Hopefully, there’ll be many more to come. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 6, 2023
A piercingly emotional drama, acted with natural flair. Read full review
80
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiAug 1, 2023
Earth Mama is the kind of film that draws you in and keeps you hooked with its powerful storytelling and the layered intimacy within Nomore’s understated performance. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJul 13, 2023
[Leaf] reinvigorates one of the basic elements of movies, the closeup, and restores its centrality as the beating heart of the cinema. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearJul 10, 2023
Savanah Leaf’s slice-of-life movie is full of these revelatory moments — sometimes lyrical, sometimes gritty, often swirling the two together — and the former Olympian-turned-filmmaker‘s feature debut pitches itself somewhere between the detail accumulation of cinéma vérité and the feeling you’ve stepped into someone’s dream. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 25, 2023
Earth Mama offers no falsely encouraging happy ending, but its clear-eyed humanity nonetheless feels like a balm. In a society that often tries to sweep the poor away so that they’re out of sight, this film encourages us to see — and to care. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 25, 2023
Leaf recognizes that whatever happens to Gia, the problem remains. Her portrait is intended to illuminate, and Nomore makes for a wonderful collaborator in this. Read full review
75
Washington PostOmari DanielsJul 24, 2023
Earth Mama says a lot with very few words. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 21, 2023
By the end, we’re a lot more sympathetic because this movie and this performance let us live in her shoes, just for a little while, and feel her burdens, grief, guilt and panic as we do. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 5, 2023
Leaf applies a documentarian’s dispassion to the telling of this fictional story, and to a large extent that works. One of the virtues of documentaries is also a virtue of this narrative feature — it depicts a kind of person who usually doesn’t get movies made about her and tells the world her story with respect and empathy. Read full review
67
The PlaylistRobert DanielsJan 25, 2023
Sometimes Leaf asks us to see too much. But Earth Mama is grounded enough and empathetic enough to be worth the bleak toll it exacts. Read full review
More From This Movie

84 Critic Reviews

tbd User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL