Paterson
Bleecker Street Media | Release Date: December 28, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
90
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Little White LiesSophie Monks KaufmanDec 1, 2021
Driver embodies calmness and stillness. This performance cements his status as an actor whose physical command matches his ability to telegraph inner life. It’s a cliché to say that the greatest actors make the smallest actions magnetic, but it’s true of Driver who makes the non-demonstrative act of listening feel like it means the world. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJan 25, 2017
Not only is it a film about a poet, Paterson transcends its story to become a work of poetry itself. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 19, 2017
Paterson the movie doesn’t mine the dross and drab of our everyday lives for gold — it says they already are gold, and all you have to do is look. “Say it! No ideas but in things.” See it. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 18, 2017
The movie is quiet and serene, but it stirs and inspires and amuses. In the small details of an ordinary life, Jarmusch finds wells of beauty and empathy. The movie is an exploration of the deep pleasures of creativity. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniJan 12, 2017
Paterson is easily one of Jarmusch’s most accomplished films. He portrays the life of the mind and the workings of the creative soul as a kind of secret love affair, a deep, hidden well inside the most ordinary, mundane existence. Read full review
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 12, 2017
It’s a perfect vehicle for Driver, who endearingly captures the hangdog humility of his character. It’s a portrayal that might encourage more people to write poetry. And as the quirky but cheerful Laura, Farahani is just right. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandJan 5, 2017
Jarmusch has created a small miracle of a film, one that is both intellectually dazzling and emotionally provocative. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 5, 2017
What becomes clear in the course of the movie is that Jarmusch has constructed his own version of a poem, with recurring images and themes that allow him to delve into the nature of commitment, artistic ambition and how inner life is shaped by the tidal pull of place and history. Read full review
100
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 28, 2016
It’s about love and poetry and dreams, and about the chance encounter that can close a wound with the magic efficiency of a tiny butterfly bandage. How you pour all of that into one movie is something of a mystery. But then, a good poem is always something of a mystery too. Read full review
100
Village VoiceBilge EbiriDec 27, 2016
With each step, the film gains depth. Small variations in routine start to feel monumental, and the briefest encounter can seem like a sign of something great. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangDec 27, 2016
What’s magical about Paterson — and what may frustrate those seeking a tidier, prosier experience — is its refusal to settle for clear answers. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyDec 27, 2016
The movie’s protagonist, played with spectacular attention to detail and what feels like a genuine sense of affinity by Adam Driver, is named Paterson. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Dec 21, 2016
In showing us the interest one man takes in everything around him, he’s suggesting that living a life of simplicity and security can be conducive to beautiful expression—even, or perhaps especially, in a place as ordinary as Paterson. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 23, 2016
Paterson's sunny aesthetic and disposition marks a stylistic departure for writer-director Jim Jarmusch. Read full review
100
The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaMay 21, 2016
Like the best poetry, Paterson keeps its meticulous construction hidden, letting its impact sneak up on you unawares. When the final image cuts to black, it triggers an overwhelming surge of emotions that’ll make you want to remain seated in the dark until long after the credits have finished rolling, basking in this marvelous film’s afterglow. Read full review
100
IndieWireEric KohnMay 21, 2016
Carried by an appropriately low-key Adam Driver and Jarmusch's casual genius for capturing offhand remarks, Paterson is his most absorbing character study since "Broken Flowers" -- and far more grounded in real life. There's no context necessary to recognize it as his most personal work. Read full review
100
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 21, 2016
Writer-director Jim Jarmusch often explores existential themes, but they’ve perhaps never been so beautifully unadorned as they are in Paterson, a deceptively modest character piece that’s profound and moving while remaining grounded in the everyday. Read full review
100
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 21, 2016
How Jarmusch takes this match-stick house of nothings and fills it with such calm and wisdom is a mystery with only one real answer: he’s an artist. Read full review
100
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 21, 2016
The whole set-up risks being all too winsome, but Jarmusch has always been a quiet punk: his most radical assertion is believing, despite everything, in the essential goodness of people. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyDec 27, 2016
Even though Jarmuch has a distinct directorial style, it’s his style. It’s impossible to imitate. These days, I can’t think of a higher compliment. Read full review
91
ConsequenceNico LangOct 4, 2016
One of the director’s finest to date, the film derives its unique power from the repetition of daily life, elevating the mundane to a kind of divinity. Read full review
91
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 21, 2016
An unfeasibly charming film full of little wisdoms and quiet comforts where we might expect to find provocations, its only deception is that it is so much richer than it seems at first glance. Read full review
90
SalonMax CeaDec 29, 2016
Jarmusch has a tendency (which is intentional) to turn away from what is obviously beautiful and popular, and to instead beautifully render what is rarely noticed and perhaps slightly ugly. He credits the cinematographer Robby Müller with teaching him, “Don’t look for the obvious, always keep your eyes open, keep thinking on your feet.” Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisDec 27, 2016
With visual precision and emotional restraint — and aided by Mr. Driver’s tamped-down, sober and gently endearing performance — Mr. Jarmusch creates that rarest portrait of the artist: the one who’s happy being hard at work. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 27, 2016
I’ve never seen a film that captures the inner world of an artist with such delicacy. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 19, 2017
Paterson is a fable, brimming with symbolism and inside literary references and nods to playwrights and authors from decades and centuries gone by — but it’s also authentic and plausible, in its own weird way. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 28, 2016
Adam Driver gives one of the loveliest and least likely to be rewarded performances of the year in Paterson. Why least likely, you ask? Because Driver's indelibly moving portrayal is so lived-in and lyrical you hardly recognize it as acting. Read full review
85
TheWrapBen CrollMay 21, 2016
A small, cyclical film about the value of a small, cyclical life, Jim Jarmusch‘s Paterson is a perfect version of itself. His ode to small pleasures and the simple life comes in the form of a simple film that is a small pleasure. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 19, 2017
Paterson keeps plugging away, despite the intrusion of some outside forces. Making art is simply part of his makeup, and it makes Paterson a hopeful film. Read full review
80
EmpireHelen O'HaraNov 21, 2016
Quiet, thoughtful and deeply human, this is one of Jarmusch’s finest and features Adam Driver’s best performance yet — although you do risk coming out with a new affection for modernist poetry. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredJoseph FalconeSep 19, 2016
Paterson, led by Adam Driver's skillfully restrained performance, is a brazing social commentary culminating in a harsh, yet beautiful truth. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonGeoff AndrewMay 21, 2016
Art, the film suggests, is about first noticing then communing with the world around you. In that sense, it’s another wise, wonderful Jarmusch movie about the importance, in this sad and beautiful world, of friendship and love. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 21, 2016
What a lovely film Paterson is. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorFeb 9, 2017
One of the most compelling aspects about Paterson as a film about art is the effortless way in which it declines to ask its audience to judge whether Paterson’s poems are any good: their quality seems immaterial to Jarmusch’s point. It is the act of writing them, both expressing and amplifying Paterson’s sensitivity to his world, that seems important. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesTom KeoghJan 12, 2017
Driver’s performance as an uncertain man getting through the day-to-day prosaic, quietly buoyed by passion and artistic commitment, is exquisite. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartDec 27, 2016
There is an honesty and realism to Driver’s performances that work well in the part of a blue-collar poet who feels no need to court the spotlight. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 26, 2016
This movie has almost no bite but plenty of moseying charm, and what it does get right is the idea of poets as perpetual magpies. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsAmy RoweDec 21, 2016
Paterson is poetic. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 21, 2016
Unassuming, idiosyncratic and set in the run-down eponymous New Jersey city that has produced more than its share of noted personalities, this is a mild-mannered, almost startlingly undramatic work that offers discreet pleasures to longtime fans of the New York indie-scene veteran. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 5, 2017
Driver’s low-key charisma in the role rescues it from terminal dullness, and there are a few fine sidelights. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 21, 2016
Paterson, Jarmusch’s wee dramatic curio starring Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus driver – his name is Paterson, and he lives in Paterson — is a movie that’s all too aware of how much it diverges from contemporary tempo. That’s because the entire film is a self-conscious anachronism. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 19, 2017
Anybody familiar with Jarmusch’s work will recognize his static style — the muted long conversations, the quiet, the storytelling largely lacking in incident, melodrama or narrative drive. Longtime fans will wonder where the humor is. Read full review
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