Leave the World Behind
Netflix | Release Date: November 22, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
8
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
TheWrapKristen LopezOct 26, 2023
Leave the World Behind enters the stage as one of the year’s best and no doubt will spark massive amounts of conversation. It’s cast helps take viewers on a journey that, while they’ll feel the length, they’ll be so compelled by what’s happening it won’t even matter. Just don’t expect to sleep easy after seeing it. Read full review
88
The Associated PressMark KennedyDec 5, 2023
It’s a story brilliantly adapted and directed by Sam Esmail, showrunner of “Mr. Robot,” who has made Leave the World Behind into a homage of Alfred Hitchcock, complete with the image of a man trying to outrun a crashing plane and using the master’s discordant loud music. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 22, 2023
Leave the World Behind is a bold and tricky endeavor that pays off in just about perfect fashion. You might never think of “Friends” in the same way again. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanNov 20, 2023
A satisfyingly suspenseful apocalyptic thriller with almost enough visual effects to give "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Deep Impact" a run for their money. Read full review
85
CNNBrian LowryDec 8, 2023
Edgy, unsettlingly paranoid and genuinely clever, it’s a logical continuation of the conversation writer-director Sam Esmail started with “Mr. Robot.” Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezDec 22, 2023
Leave The World Behind isn’t as perfect as its best-written moments —the ones that are somehow expertly frightening, funny, stressful, and cleverly observational, all at the same time—and the movie even f*cks up its Chekov’s gun tease. But as a wicked, playful, tension-filled, and alarming treatise on humanity, its deep flaws, and how fragile, questionable, scattered, and thus vulnerable we are to attack? Read full review
83
ColliderRoss BonaimeDec 5, 2023
Leave the World Behind is a smart, compelling take on the end of the world, and proves Esmail is a writer-director who deserves larger-scale projects like this after his television successes. Read full review
83
Original-CinChris KnightNov 27, 2023
Leave the World Behind is not perfect — a little long at two hours and 18 minutes, and a little too talky in the final act — but it is emotional and affecting and very of-the-moment. Read full review
83
IndieWireChristian ZilkoOct 26, 2023
With high points that are sharp and low points that are nonsensical, Leave the World Behind never ceases to be entertaining. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyDec 8, 2023
Esmail goes big and bold with his Hitchcock allusions and showy camera work, not unlike M Night Shyamalan. At times, he’s a little on the nose, also not unlike M Night Shyamalan. It suits his vision. Read full review
80
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannDec 8, 2023
Leave the World Behind may pull some of its punches in favor of an easy out, but it's still a thought-provoking, dread-inducing tale about the end of a world that has become all too familiar. Read full review
80
BBCCaryn JamesDec 1, 2023
Esmail's adaptation of Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel adds a playful Hitchcockian spin and the starry cast of Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali to create a psychological thriller about family, technology and life in the 21st Century. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinDec 1, 2023
The film looks good and moves well. It earns its initially forbidding running time. It’s driven by human behaviour you might actually recognise. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 27, 2023
A provocative, superbly acted action drama that combines big-hitting ambition and spectacle with just enough humour to temper the whole end-of-civilisation meltdown scenario. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonOct 26, 2023
Leave The World Behind draws from familiar elements, but this adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel stands apart thanks to its excellent performances and slow, superb escalation of tension. Read full review
75
ABC NewsPeter TraversDec 1, 2023
Oh no—not another doomsday thriller! Yes, but hold on and see how director Sam Esmail and producers Barack and Michelle Obama, powered by an exceptional all-star cast (Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Kevin Bacon), make you care while frying your nerves to a frazzle. Read full review
75
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerNov 21, 2023
The themes of Leave the World Behind—and the place where everything ends up, which is funny and charming but a little unfinished—aren’t as tautly composed as the body encasing them. But considering ideas of “us against them” in times of crisis, and who exactly is “us,” and who is “them,” are worth considering in our current time. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonDec 8, 2023
Adapted from Rumaan Alam’s bestselling novel, Sam Esmail’s film is a dreary, harrowing sit—and all the more invigorating for it. Read full review
70
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaDec 7, 2023
I'm not quite sure what "Leave the World Behind" is trying to say, other than the fact that as a species, we seem to be inherently doomed because we're too neurotic to help ourselves. That might leave a sour taste in the mouths of some viewers, but there's something refreshing about a film so unapologetic about its unflinching hopelessness.  Read full review
70
Rolling StoneDavid FearDec 6, 2023
The seeds of our destruction have already been planted by us; they simply need a little water and and sunlight to grow. And the more that Leave the World Behind pokes at that notion, the more you fear that this isn’t a thriller. It could be a documentary with movie stars. Read full review
70
VoxConstance GradyNov 21, 2023
Esmail, who earned his chops as the showrunner of Mr. Robot, excels at drawing out his characters’ paranoia. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeOct 26, 2023
Per Howard Hawks’ too-easy rubric, “A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes,” this one’s a keeper. The best scene may be the last. Read full review
68
PolygonOli WelshDec 12, 2023
In its creation of a hushed, lonely idyll at the end of the world, disturbed by techno-biblical visions of disaster, what it recalls more than anything else is Lost. And like Lost, it’s most assured when it isn’t explaining itself or looking for climax or resolution, neither of which it really finds. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsDec 5, 2023
Similar to other disaster flicks, this film worms through oddball characters, takes interest in the disintegration of society, and the tension that arises from disparate people pushed to survive with each other. But Leave the World Behind struggles where it matters most, fashioning real stakes to accompany the turmoil. Read full review
60
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaDec 8, 2023
Leave the World Behind has a worthwhile cast, but its paranoid thrills quickly fizzle out en route to a baffling final scene. Read full review
60
Total FilmKate StablesDec 7, 2023
Adapting from Rumaan Alam’s bestseller, writer/director Esmail (creator of TV’s tech-conspiracy drama Mr Robot) paints a scarily plausible picture of how fast chaos and conflict erupt when our computer-reliant systems suddenly start to fail. But his endlessly bickering characters ultimately stop us caring whether their world ends with a bang or with a whimper. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 23, 2023
As the catastrophe escalates, the movie’s mood music of imminent horror gets gradually and continuously louder, without ever quite reaching a climax of fear – or meaning. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberOct 26, 2023
As a nightmarish suspense drama about everyday life disintegrating, Esmail’s movie is sometimes effective, even while it echoes earlier films like The Road and David Koepp’s underrated 1996 thriller, The Trigger Effect. Read full review
50
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonDec 7, 2023
After a while, the movie plays like a bulleted list of everything wrong with America — fair enough — but hurled so relentlessly at the audience that you can only assume the goal is for anyone watching the movie to find something they agree with. In the onslaught, the narrative tension dulls into passivity, both for us and for the characters. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 22, 2023
Because “Leave the World Behind” is weak and unconvincing when it comes to character interaction, the film drags in the moment-by-moment, despite its stellar cast. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriDec 8, 2023
Unfortunately, the film doesn’t demonstrate any kind of interest in, or affection for, its characters. They’re cardboard cutouts, there to represent postures rather than evoke our sympathy or humanity or even curiosity. Read full review
40
EmpireLillian CrawfordDec 7, 2023
A starry trio and suspenseful filmmaking can’t save this apocalyptic thriller from collapsing on itself. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineSteven ScaifeDec 8, 2023
In the end, Leave the World Behind is content to blandly shrug in the direction of an amorphous calamity, reaching for a profundity that it fails to achieve. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 8, 2023
Leave the World Behind is not awful or wrong-headed or particularly insightful as a parable. It just isn’t very good at what disaster movies are supposed to be good at. Read full review
38
ObserverDylan RothDec 6, 2023
Leave the World Behind is a dumb movie disguised as a smart movie, a middling thriller whose decorated cast and tricky camerawork can’t compensate for its undercooked, overwritten script. Read full review
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