Last Train Home
Zeitgeist Films | Release Date: September 3, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
This is essential viewing for understanding our world. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It's one of those extraordinary films, like "Hoop Dreams," that tells a story the makers could not possibly have anticipated in advance. It works like stunning, grieving fiction. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Mr. Fan's documentary is informed by a melancholy humanism, and finds unexpected beauty in almost unbearably harsh circumstances. It tells the story of a family caught, and possibly crushed, between the past and the future - a story that, on its own, is moving, even heartbreaking. Multiplied by 130 million, it becomes a terrifying and sobering panorama of the present. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Fan's camera moves sinuously through these people's lives and gives a human face to a national panorama. Read full review
100
Time OutDavid Fear
The attention to visuals is above and beyond what most vérité is capable of; doing double duty as the film's cinematographer, Fan demonstrates a pitch-perfect photojournalistic eye. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen Johnson
Fan has visual panache - Last Train Home has some gorgeously composed shots - but he also has something that can't be taught: The patience and understanding to allow a family to tell their heartbreaking story in their own way. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The Chinese economic miracle, however, came at a wrenching human cost, one that is beautifully explored in an exceptional documentary called Last Train Home. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A miniature masterpiece of documentary observation. Read full review
85
NPRJeannette Catsoulis
Frequently moving and quietly enlightening, Last Train Home is about love and exploitation, sacrifice and endurance. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Sometimes the story is so much like a fiction feature-complete with explosive family arguments and pointed cross-cutting between the free-spirited Qin and her beaten-down folks-that it feels exploitative, as though Lixin were turning real people into characters. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Disappointment, inhuman work schedules, sluggish exports, and the crush of a two-day rail journey ratchet up the familial tensions, which finally explode over a holiday dinner. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineSteve Ramos
Fan finds the delicate balance between broad socio-political themes and a single family torn between centuries-old traditions and the desire to succeed in the capitalist world. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
A startling look at the devastating human cost of China's newfound embrace of capitalism. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Fan's fly-on-the-wall perspective enables the viewer to empathize with all the players in the family drama, unlikely to have a happy ending. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)James Adams
It's an intense and tense time, unsurprisingly, and superbly realized by Lixin's unflinching yet compassionate eye, the Zhang family his microcosm for the Chinese macrocosm. Read full review
70
VarietyLeslie Felperin
The picture laudably adopts an intimate, personal approach to a subject -- hardworking Chinese garment workers -- that's been covered in more hectoring fashion elsewhere. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Everything is edged with desperation. However arduous Last Train Home may have been to shoot, it was infinitely more arduous to live. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
It's depressing enough to watch this family's struggles with life. But their pain really hits home when you think that the pants you might be wearing could have contributed to it. Read full review
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