Oh, Canada
Kino Lorber | Release Date: December 6, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyDec 6, 2024
While "Oh, Canada" has moments of mordant humor, its ultimate mode is the elegiac. Read full review
91
The PlaylistRafaela Sales RossMay 19, 2024
Schrader’s gaze is patient — tired, almost. He frames Gere’s aged face in tight close-ups, and it is as if we are seeing him for the first time, wrinkled and ragged and oh so very beautiful. Read full review
90
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonDec 5, 2024
Schrader’s approach to this material — it’s his second movie based on a novel by Banks, the first being “Affliction” (1998) — is fascinating, a filmmaker’s translation in every sense of the word. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyDec 12, 2024
Paul Schrader’s latest film Oh, Canada, based on Russell Banks’ final novel Foregone, is a confined affair, suggesting the art of constructing complicated toy sailing ships in small bottles. Confined, but complicated. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyDec 2, 2024
In “Oh, Canada,” Schrader realizes a tale of immense complexity with bold ease. He is helped by the sharp-eyed editing of Benjamin Rodriguez, Jr., and the variety of Andrew Wonder’s cinematography. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 19, 2024
Oh, Canada presents a dying artist’s final testimony as a multifaceted film-within-a-film, honoring Banks while also revealing so many of Schrader’s own thoughts on mortality. Read full review
80
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 19, 2024
Amid the formal fluidity, the forceful acting keeps us hooked. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 19, 2024
Oh, Canada might be a movie that was conceived in the long dark night of the soul, but it moves towards brightness and possibility. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 12, 2024
Gere remains a unique camera object, with a stunning mastery of filling a close-up with an unblinking stillness conveying feelings easier left behind. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenMay 28, 2024
There’s a sense here of Paul Schrader wanting to pare back his customary aesthetic even further than it’s already been parred over the last several films and speak plainly, with as little scrim between the audience and himself as possible. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorMay 19, 2024
Even by the director’s meditative standards, this one cuts close to the bone. Read full review
70
IGNChase HutchinsonMay 23, 2024
It's a frequently fascinating and often moving film despite its many, often glaring, flaws. Read full review
70
The Daily BeastEsther ZuckermanMay 19, 2024
Oh, Canada can be a clunky film at times—with some awkward performances and labored dialogue—but it’s also an often fascinating match of director and actor, in which both seem to be trying to exorcize the demons of aging through art. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 9, 2026
It lacks the wild provocations of Schrader’s scalding recent trilogy, but Oh, Canada pokes and probes in quieter, sneakier ways. Read full review
60
ColliderCaleb HammondMay 29, 2024
Oh, Canada is a more reflective work from Paul Schrader with plenty on its mind that still falls short of his best works. Read full review
60
Screen RantPatrice WitherspoonMay 23, 2024
With sincerity and style, Schrader offers a thoughtful film about life and legacy. Read full review
60
Time OutDave CalhounMay 20, 2024
Its bitty flashback approach to Fife’s earlier life feels shallow, and the dynamics around the recording of his memories too often feel bogus, with Thurman’s character’s complaints feeling especially repetitive and one-note. But the sting of mortality is felt just strongly enough, and Schrader offers an unsentimental, clear-eyed view of the near-impossibility of finding a neat closure on life’s mistakes and failures. Read full review
60
The Film VerdictOris AigbokhaevboloMay 19, 2024
A movie that is neither Schrader’s best work nor his most scandalous. Read full review
58
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerOct 15, 2024
It’s no wonder why Schrader, an older artist whose life and career have been defined by a seemingly limitless series of controversies, took to bringing to the screen the story of Leonard Fife. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonJan 6, 2025
Oh, Canada is about not so much Fife’s artistic growth as his journey to hermetically sealed narcissism. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonDec 12, 2024
I’ll give Schrader the benefit of the doubt that his dialogue is stilted by design, even though the female characters are particularly prone to clunkers. . . But it’s still irritating to sit through, and once we start questioning everything we see — would young Leonard really order a bran muffin at an ice cream parlor? — it gets harder to hand over our trust when the movie wants to get emotional. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJason GorberMay 23, 2024
Oh, Canada feels less a deep rumination at the last moments of an artist’s life, and more the confused ramblings of an irascible, self-important character surrounded by sycophants unable to stand up to his unreasonable demands. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 19, 2024
For a film about big themes like mortality, memory, truth and redemption, Oh, Canada feels both slight and stubbornly page-bound, too unsatisfyingly fleshed out to give its actors meat to chew on. Read full review
50
IndieWireRyan LattanzioMay 19, 2024
Schrader adapts the 2021 novel Foregone by Russell Banks into his own specific creation, and one that leaves viewers dizzied and lost by the chopped-up melancholy of it all. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 19, 2024
Muddled, anticlimactic and often diffidently performed, this oddly passionless new movie from Paul Schrader is a disappointment. Read full review
20
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 19, 2024
Schrader is a million miles from the potent anguish of First Reformed, the 2017 film that won him an Oscar; rather, this nearly rivals his 2013 erotic thriller The Canyons, starring Lindsay Lohan, for bewildering tedium. Read full review
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