Limbo
Music Box Films | Release Date: March 22, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiz BraunMay 17, 2024
The film is an indictment of law enforcement as it operates (or doesn’t) for aboriginal people. Read full review
100
Film ThreatMichael Talbot-HaynesMar 22, 2024
Limbo is a cinematic monument for the shadows of the doomed. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 24, 2023
Led by an almost unrecognizable Simon Baker as a jaded cop, Limbo weaves in themes of racial inequity, broken individuals and fractured families to build quiet potency. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyMar 19, 2024
Limbo is entirely engrossing as it brings its discomfiting points home. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleMar 22, 2024
Come for the cold case, stay for a couple of remarkably lived-in performances from Simon Baker and Natasha Wanganeen. Read full review
80
The GuardianLuke BuckmasterMay 17, 2023
The cast, in weather-beaten and woebegone mode, are uniformly excellent, directed by Sen in beautiful unison, their performances different notes in the same melody. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 24, 2023
It is a tough, muscular film with the grit of crime, but a heartbeat of compassion. Read full review
80
Screen DailyWendy IdeFeb 24, 2023
It’s a distinctive work, both visually – the stark black and white photography accentuates the uncanny, almost lunar pockmarks on this scarred terrain – and in terms of its intriguingly detached outback noir storytelling. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeFeb 24, 2023
Limbo joins a long line of fine Australian films taking to the desert to disinter racial trauma, to rebury the bones with more care and awareness, but also enduring fury. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineWilliam RepassMar 19, 2024
The cinematography solidifies the film’s status as a noir grappling with corruption and probing moral grey areas, while at the same time echoing visually the stark divisions between white and Indigenous people in Australian society. Read full review
72
Paste MagazineJacob OllerMar 21, 2024
A return to form for writer/director Ivan Sen—an Indigenous Australian filmmaker whose 2013 movie Mystery Road, its sequel and its miniseries spin-off all deal with similar subject matter—this cold-case thriller hacks through its genre clichés and Christian symbolism early so we can appreciate its charming, somber core. Read full review
70
The New York TimesElisabeth VincentelliMar 21, 2024
Sen, who also handled both the black-and-white cinematography and the editing, has a terrific eye for shot composition and sets a deliberate pace that feels implacable rather than merely slow. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 19, 2024
I was wholly taken in by the forlorn setting and by the racism subtext in play here. But too little happens in “Limbo” for my taste, and there’s a fine line between “patient” storytelling and a film so slack in its pacing as to lower the stakes and test the viewer’s patience. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesMar 22, 2024
Written, directed and edited by Ivan Sen and shot (also by Mr. Sen) in black-and-white, the film is spare, sunbleached and serious in its study of people long neglected and abused. Yet the drama is thin, and the mystery halfhearted. Read full review
50
ColliderMarco Vito OddoMar 2, 2023
If viewers manage to sync with this specific wavelength, they will definitely enjoy Sen’s methodical noir deconstruction. Still, it might be asking too much from the audience, especially where there’s so little payoff to be found in this corner of the Australian outback. Read full review
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