Leave No Trace
Bleecker Street | Release Date: June 29, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
43
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyJun 29, 2018
Leave No Trace is, at times, heartbreaking, but it's also filled with glimpses of almost casual human kindness, throwaway moments of good will and inclusion piercing through what could be the bleakest of tales. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleCarla MeyerJun 28, 2018
Unlike the sometimes cornpone depictions of backwoods life in “Winter’s Bone,” the folksier moments here seem organic. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 28, 2018
The first few minutes of Leave No Trace are as entrapping as the spider webs the camera notices in passing. They catch you up in a suspenseful wilderness tale that opens out to an urgent drama of conflict, beauty and growth. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 28, 2018
Fiercely involving in a way we're not used to, made with sensitivity and honesty by director/co-writer Debra Granik, it tells its emotional story of a father and daughter living dangerously off the grid in a way that is unnerving and uncompromising yet completely satisfying. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 28, 2018
In its best moments, Leave No Trace invites you to simply be with its characters, to see and experience the world as they do. Empathy, the movie reminds you, is something that is too little asked of you either in life or in art. Both Mr. Foster’s and Ms. Harcourt McKenzie’s sensitive, tightly checked performances are critical in this regard. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 13, 2018
It’s a movie that will live with me for a long time. Read full review
100
Village VoiceBilge Ebiri
Granik films with subtlety and quiet grace, but Leave No Trace explodes in the mind. Read full review
91
The PlaylistJordan Ruimy
Leave No Trace is a universal, unforgettable experience. Read full review
90
The AtlanticDavid SimsJun 29, 2018
Granik’s ability to convey so much about how a community works without didacticism is part of what made Winter’s Bone (which was set in the Ozarks) such a thrill to watch. While Leave No Trace is a more muted drama, it has a similarly firm grasp on its characters and the places they comes across. Read full review
90
VoxAlissa WilkinsonJun 28, 2018
Leave No Trace is the story of a bond between a teenage daughter and her veteran father, but in the background is another kind of bond, something that keeps the world from spinning apart. That’s Granik’s subject, and Leave No Trace explores it simply but unforgettably. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekJun 28, 2018
There’s no such thing as perfect love in families; often it’s the fine threads of tension that actually hold things together. Granik’s "Winter’s Bone" was greatly admired for the way it presented “ordinary people” of the Ozarks. But Leave No Trace is better. Read full review
90
SlateInkoo KangJun 28, 2018
The fissure between father and daughter approaches like a snake. It sneaks up on you, then leaves you in paralyzed shock. Read full review
90
Film Journal InternationalMaria GarciaJun 28, 2018
In their trailer, the gift of the religious do-gooder who owns the farm, the exigencies of survival subside, and the quiet brilliance of Foster and McKenzie’s performances surface. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 28, 2018
Leave No Trace is a beautiful film, heartbreaking in the self-awareness — both existing and burgeoning — of its characters. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The heart of Leave No Trace is the rapport between the father and daughter, and McKenzie and Foster are keyed to each other’s movements, perhaps even each other’s thoughts. Read full review
90
Vanity FairRichard Lawson
Granik works simply, but she doesn’t forego artistry. She’s made a film of grace and power, a story of people lost and found in America that often shows us at our noble and humble best. How rare and refreshing that is these days. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterJon Frosch
The movie takes its time, but in its unassuming way, draws you close and keeps you there. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJul 11, 2018
Although the dramatic scale of Leave No Trace is small as well, that trait should not be mistaken for insignificance. This film raises more questions than it answers, which can prove a turnoff to some viewers, but others will soak in its ambiguities long after the closing credits. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenAug 2, 2018
Leave No Trace, Debra Granik’s first fiction feature since 2010’s masterful Winter’s Bone, is a movie that’s willing to whisper. If you don’t listen (and watch) closely, you might miss out on the deep wells of emotion beneath its placid surface. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 15, 2018
Leave No Trace is one of the most moving motion pictures thus far of 2018 and it achieves its power without resorting to the overt manipulation favored by many movies. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 5, 2018
In some ways, it’s almost a silent film – characters only speak when necessary, with Foster and McKenzie (a remarkable find, who is bound to generate Lawrence comparisons) telling the story with their eyes. But Granik’s attention to family dynamics, and the pained feelings of those living outside America’s rigid expectations, speak louder than words. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 4, 2018
Leave No Trace is not a sociological treatise. It has nothing grandiose to say about homelessness or PTSD. It does, however, deliver an effective (and deeply affecting) allegory of the inevitable leave-taking that all of us — housed or unhoused, happy or half mad — must undergo with our loved ones. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJul 4, 2018
In Leave No Trace, director Debra Granik continues to refine a style of tranquil intensity. The film's images have a rapt and pared-down power, with emphases that are never quite where you expect them to be. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 29, 2018
You don't just watch it as much as you absorb it until the film's ebb and flow become a part of you. Read full review
88
The Associated PressLindsey BahrJun 28, 2018
It’s a testament to the actors and director that it remains riveting throughout. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesBrent McKnightJun 26, 2018
Quiet and meticulously constructed, Leave No Trace offers a powerful, affecting look at people pushed to the fringes and hanging on by the slimmest of margins. Harrowing and enthralling in equal measures, it’s a challenging and rewarding experience. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 29, 2018
Everybody connected to this movie appears to be operating on the same wavelength: They want to do justice to the lives of the people that we see. To a remarkable degree, they do. Read full review
83
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaJun 28, 2018
What Leave No Trace portrays so beautifully, with so much unspoken grace, is that divide between living and surviving to live. One can find all of that dissonance in Foster’s fathomless eyes. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 27, 2018
It’s a slower (at times probably too slow) and more contemplative movie than its predecessor, but it’s no less haunting, thanks to unshakable performances from Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd
Moving, perhaps inevitably, toward a final fork in the woods, Leave No Trace condenses big questions into something simple and quietly powerful: two people bonded by blood and shared history, discovering how their needs align and diverge. Read full review
83
The Film StageDaniel Schindel
Leave No Trace’s acute sense of place and how people relate to it makes for great, emotion-laden naturalism. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJul 11, 2018
A memorable emotional journey -- and reminds us once more why Granik is such an intriguing filmmaker to watch. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJun 28, 2018
Granik builds her engaging, sympathetic characters in subtle increments. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJun 25, 2018
It might not have the oomph of "Winter’s Bone," but this is a sympathetic, affecting, beautifully realised portrait of lives lived on the margins. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJun 25, 2018
Foster and McKenzie thoroughly convince in the hands of Granik, who moulds a subtle, assured, and often powerful tale. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 25, 2018
Only after the movie ends do you understand what Debra Granik, with a consummate sleight of hand, has done. Here, among the peaceful trees, without a shot fired in anger, she’s made a war film. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 12, 2018
Subtle but assured to the end, Granik’s film is all undertow, but it irresistibly grabs you. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim Grierson
It’s a film that never overwhelms but it lingers, leaving its mark on the viewer. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJul 12, 2018
Leave No Trace, is less story-driven than Winter’s Bone (which made a star of Jennifer Lawrence), more lyrical, more attuned to the melancholy of the novel and its quiet portrait of a young woman caught between dependence and independence, love and fear. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJul 5, 2018
Foster (“Hell or High Water”), who is best known for portraying unhinged and dangerous characters, is intriguingly enigmatic as Will. And Harcourt McKenzie turns in a hauntingly memorable performance. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 2, 2018
Trace works because even if this film avoids the classic “disturbed vet” story cliches, that this situation is untenable, dangerous and limiting. The marvel of Leave No Trace is that we continue watching, utterly absorbed, to see if Tom will figure that out as well. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid Ehrlich
Leave No Trace sprouts into a modest but extraordinarily graceful film about what people need from each other, and the limits of what they can give of themselves. Read full review
70
TheWrapElizabeth Weitzman
Granik took a big risk here, making a purposefully small film that rejects familiar notions of dramatic conflict. But her approach works well enough that the most jarring note becomes Foster’s movie-star presence. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter Debruge
There’s a listless, almost meandering nature to the story. The film’s conflict is clear — this is no way to raise a child, and allowed to continue in this fashion, Will risks both his life and Tom’s — and yet there’s no sense of where the script it headed, and no urgency to its resolution. Read full review
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