Little Men
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: August 5, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottAug 4, 2016
It’s a subtle movie, alert to the almost imperceptible currents of feeling that pass between its title characters. Read full review
100
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlAug 3, 2016
Sachs, a clear-eyed humanist, honors all his characters' pained perspectives. Read full review
100
CineVueMatthew AndersonJun 23, 2016
Sachs' extraordinarily humane knack for emotional restraint echoes throughout Little Men. And it is all the more profound for it. Read full review
100
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganJan 30, 2016
The remarkable, magical thing about this film is that, at 85 minutes, it’s so whole. With its fully-formed people and changing places, Little Men is a film a viewer can live in, and think about while they’re there. Read full review
100
The GuardianNigel M SmithJan 30, 2016
Sachs’ approach is so humane, and his characters so fully rendered, that an agenda never announces itself; instead, Sachs’ worldview seeps into you. He’s that skilled a film-maker. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 30, 2016
The performances are impeccable. Sachs is a master of expressive understatement, and that applies both to the young actors playing the boys — there's not a false moment from either of them — and to the adults. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaAug 18, 2016
The most remarkable thing about Ira Sachs’ richly textured new film Little Men is how it manages to be about so much, and yet so little. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenAug 10, 2016
Ira Sachs’ beautifully observed Little Men zeros in on teen-spirit qualities that might, by conventional standards, be considered less cinematic: creativity and innocence, a tender spark brought to life by terrific newcomers Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 4, 2016
I was riveted by the performance of Paulina García, the great Chilean actress who plays Tony’s beleaguered mother. To watch her is to see exactly how less can be more. Instead of acting, she allows her character to reveal her thoughts in words that are all the more powerful for being few, far between and softly spoken. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJan 30, 2016
The power of Little Men is in how the characters resist the melodramatic flow (which is, come to think of it, how Chekhov works, too). Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 30, 2016
Ira Sachs’ Little Men is a little movie brimming with little truths about modern life. It won’t change the world, but it does understand it Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 31, 2016
Nobody’s a monster here, and that’s the subtle, aching rub of Little Men: Everyone is right in their claim, depending on the right angle, be it economic, sentimental, moral, or fraternal. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 2, 2016
You know how some kids just connect? Jake and Tony connect. And the adults in their lives, without really meaning to do so, make it difficult for that connection to hold. It is a measure of Sachs' talent and skills that such a seemingly small story can resonate in such big ways. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 1, 2016
Sachs doesn’t push the tragic aspects of Little Men, but they’re there, looming behind the life-goes-on vibe of the final scenes and waiting for you to work it out on the way home. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 1, 2016
Any film with Jennifer Ehle, perfect as the tightly wound but loving therapist, tends to be worth seeing in the first place. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldAug 18, 2016
Ira Sachs’ lovely, heartfelt drama "Love Is Strange" had at its center a New York City real-estate problem — as does his new film, the equally splendid Little Men. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 11, 2016
With a firm grasp on the duality implicit in its title, Little Men is a story that’s neither tragic nor triumphal in the way it resolves itself, but rather one that’s sadly, even satisfyingly true. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyAug 5, 2016
Little Men doesn't reach the humanist tragedy of "Love Is Strange," but that's an unfair comparison since very few films achieve what "Love Is Strange" does. Little Men is extremely powerful in its own right, with its devotion to its characters' differing perspectives so refreshing in an increasingly black-and-white world. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Johanna SchnellerAug 4, 2016
By the end, Sachs has raised urgent questions about immigration, classism, gentrification, loyalty, family and nascent sexuality – but he’s done so utterly organically, via 10 square feet of city. Lovely. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 4, 2016
Little Men, with its two boys racing at life with the brick wall of maturity still at a distance, is funny, touching and vital. It's truly an exhilarating gift. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineMatt BrennanAug 1, 2016
Director Ira Sachs transforms the smallest blip on life's radar, a childhood friendship, into a momentous occasion. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 12, 2016
Director Ira Sachs, who co-wrote with Mauricio Zacharias, has a plangent feeling for the small-scale travails of “ordinary” people – who, of course, are only ordinary on the surface. Read full review
83
TheWrapSam AdamsAug 5, 2016
Little Men is a deceptively slight movie which brings us towards the revelation that life is disappointment, and that happiness comes in being ready for it. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyKevin P. SullivanAug 4, 2016
Jake and Tony’s journey through early teendom never feels empty. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 3, 2016
A nuanced portrait of a city in flux (or decline) that uses the impressionableness of adolescence to shake our own understanding of gentrification and its residual effects, Little Men is that rarest of beasts: a truly hopeful heartbreaker. Read full review
83
ConsequenceBlake GobleMay 24, 2016
Little Men is a summer breeze, with rich melodrama and an easygoing mood, built up around two great kids and their troubled families that says more than any after-school special. It’s an episode of actual experience, presented in lovingly natural, minimalist strokes. Read full review
83
The PlaylistNoel MurrayJan 30, 2016
The beauty of Little Men — and of the director’s work in general — is that it displays a rare understanding of how the world works. Read full review
80
EmpirePhil de SemlyenSep 26, 2016
Following up Love Is Strange with another slice of urban bohemia, Sachs’ latest is another gem that's full of heart and warmth. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsAllen SalkinAug 3, 2016
Credit to Sachs and his co-screenwriter, Mauricio Zacharias, for creating a complex gentrification fight, along with cinematography by Óscar Durán and music by Dickon Hinchliffe that is both gritty and dreamy. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJan 30, 2016
If [it] doesn't feel quite as revelatory as Keep the Lights On (2012) or the heartbreaking Love Is Strange (2014), it still impresses you with its quiet, confident maturity. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 11, 2016
The movie is as interesting as spying on your neighbors during the most interesting 85 minutes of their lives. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartAug 4, 2016
Kinnear brings heart and nuance to a character in the terrible position of being asked to evict the mother of his son’s best friend. It’s a no-win situation in which no one is the bad guy — a gentle, intelligent oasis in this summer of heated name-calling. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedAug 3, 2016
It doesn’t eventually add up to much, but the acting is deeply sincere, and I was touched in unexpected places. Read full review
75
The Film StageDaniel SchindelJan 30, 2016
Little Men could have been so much more if its perspective leaned towards the opposite direction. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 1, 2016
The best reason to watch Little Men is Michael Barbieri, who musters a blend of soulfulness and aggression that would be remarkable at any age. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerAug 3, 2016
The younger characters are so full of life, and the older ones so full of trenchant but predictable talking-point issues, that it sometimes feels like a middling movie encroaching on a good one. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 19, 2016
Little Men doesn’t come to grips with much of anything, leaving relationships and questions of sexuality and even Leonor’s uncertain future uncertain. Read full review
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