Red Riding Trilogy
IFC Films | Release Date: March 3, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
These three films (adapted from David Peace's novels by different directors), each a singularly gripping work, together form a towering and emotionally complex achievement. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The powerfully disturbing Red Riding trilogy will haunt you waking and sleeping, night and day. If you survive the watching of it, that is, which is no easy thing. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Red Riding Trilogy is an immersive experience like "The Best of Youth," "Brideshead Revisited" or "Nicholas Nickleby." Read full review
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin Wilson
The success of the three, separately screened films -- the first set in 1974, the second in 1980 and the concluding segment in 1983 -- depends not on their specifics, but on their ability to sustain an atmosphere that's appropriate to the dark but haunting story. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Each episode (originally made for British TV) works by itself, but there's a real payoff in following all three. (Nothing matches The "Wire," but this holds its own.) Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Of course the films and the books each have to stand on their own, but Grisoni's stripped-down narrative definitely offers advantages, throwing some of the story's archetypal themes into sharper relief. Read full review
90
SlateDana Stevens
It's not hard to forgive this series its lack of innovation, because it manages, for long stretches at least, to be something few serial-killer dramas ever are: really, really good. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid Denby
An exhausting, morbidly fascinating, and finally thrilling experience. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Red Riding’s depiction of the avarice and corruption possible when regions become kingdoms unto themselves feels simultaneously cynical and true. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Grimly mesmerizing saga. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
This is meat-and-potatoes genre work, certainly superior to a Hollywood product like "Edge of Darkness," but not by much. Read full review
50
Village VoiceNick Pinkerton
The fact that the films hang together at the brink of incoherence is a credit to the assembled acting talent. Rebecca Hall and Maxine Peake deserve note, oases in this nasty, masculine world. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The Red Riding trilogy looks fine blown up on the big screen, though it’s easier to watch at home, where the remote offers fast relief from a grim fiction that, with its murky palette and unyielding cruelty, serves up a nihilistic vision that is unyielding, hermetic, unpersuasive and finally self-indulgent. Read full review
50
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Direction of all three films is no more than workmanlike, which isn't surprising since they were originally made for British television. The acting, on the other hand, is sometimes superb. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
One must be very, very, very, very, very interested in Yorkshire, circa 1980, to embrace and enjoy The Red Riding Trilogy. And yet ... there is something to be said for an enterprise this specific and uncompromising. Read full review
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