Sundown
Bleecker Street | Release Date: January 28, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 31, 2022
It’s an inward-looking film that seems to be saying something about life. Whatever it’s saying — and it’s not clear that it’s saying anything specific — it connects. It’s not just another good movie. Somehow, it all adds up as something more important. Read full review
100
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 6, 2021
It’s pitiless and pitch-perfect, an existential tour-de-force with shades of Camus’s The Outsider. Read full review
91
Original-CinKim HughesApr 7, 2022
Where New Order broadly surveyed and compartmentalized Mexico’s upper and lower classes, Sundown pretty much rests its entire narrative on one man, wealthy British business owner Neil Bennett — played with few words but (oxymoron alert) riveting impassivity by Tim Roth. Read full review
90
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSep 15, 2021
The genius of Sundown is how little it tells us while keeping us glued to what we're seeing. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 14, 2022
Like the master big screen poker player than he is, Roth never ever shows his cards. Read full review
88
The Associated PressLindsey BahrJan 26, 2022
Ultimately, “Sundown” is more of a spiritual sister to “Melancholia” with shades of “Somewhere." It is a portrait of a body whose soul has long since departed. Read full review
80
CineVueMartyn ConterioJun 30, 2022
Sundown is a film full of narrative and emotional surprises, upending the middle-aged bloke having a midlife crisis storyline, with Yves Cape’s cinematography capturing the classy and mundane locations with equally seductive attributes. Roth and Franco’s second rodeo is a melancholic banger. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJan 27, 2022
In one sense, Sundown is a bleak window into the corrosive effect wealth and privilege have on relationships and the psyche, and even with a final reveal that fills in some of why Neil is the way he is, it still doesn’t feel that explanatory. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for this taut, confidently unsettling film. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlan NgSep 16, 2021
Tim Roth is great as Neil. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 6, 2021
There are moments when, like the gaudy lights of Acapulco, Sundown flickers into something rather special when seen from the right angle, in the right mood: a film about a goodbye to life which is also a film about a kind of afterlife. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 6, 2021
Yes, Sundown is a mystery, but it’s also a Rorschach test. No two people will see the film the same way. Read full review
79
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzApr 6, 2022
Roth (who reunites here with his Chronic director) manages to find a peculiar amount of pain in a man sleepwalking through life. It might be the best work of the actor’s long career – or at least the most carefully controlled. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 2, 2022
Throughout the entire production, there’s an excellent sense of place with both the touristy and less friendly aspects of Acapulco contrasting with one another. These real-world contradictions are less compelling than those in Neil’s personality but they make for a fascinating backdrop to the unveiling of the truths about one man’s psychological dissolution. Read full review
75
TheWrapJason SolomonsSep 7, 2021
Its intensity burns like the sun which makes Neil’s skin blister, peeling off a layer we hope might reveal more. Franco is scratching away at the surface, too, making the sort of movie you come away from with questions, wondering if you’d blinked and missed something. Read full review
75
The PlaylistCarlos AguilarSep 6, 2021
Sundown doesn’t subvert what we’ve come to expect from Franco’s work, but it is still a distinctively cerebral rumination. Read full review
75
IndieWireNicholas BarberSep 6, 2021
Roth’s expressions range from slightly dazed to slightly drunk, and so, as the days drift by, Sundown becomes a liberating blend of mystery and existential deadpan comedy. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiFeb 2, 2022
Roth delicately captures the weight of weariness that burdens Neil, as he shuffles the streets in his Birkenstocks, briefly showing signs of life in the company of Berenice. We are locked on to Neil for those signs, and Roth’s performance is utterly absorbing. Read full review
67
The Film StageJared MobarakSep 13, 2021
The result is an introspective character study caught against a gorgeous yet volatile backdrop. While I personally believe the payoff is worth the journey, however, I wouldn’t begrudge others for feeling as though they’ve been jerked around. Read full review
65
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerJan 31, 2022
Sundown is not a sunny film, it’s true. It’s deeply nihilistic and unpleasant, and even a bit silly. But Franco’s film is nonetheless a warped and fascinating take on class as it ties to egotism. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanFeb 1, 2022
Sundown is at its most engrossing as an individual portrait, even if its inscrutable subject is a person to whom virtually no (sane) viewer will relate. Roth is still a great and mesmerizing actor, even when he’s drifting, vacantly, through a hellscape. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJan 28, 2022
Is it a compliment or a slam to say that "Sundown" could be the saddest "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode ever? Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 31, 2022
As a whole, the film lacks the courage of its own despair. The longer it goes on, the more Franco feels obliged to pack it with plot and context. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubLeila LatifJan 26, 2022
Sundown has more substance, and a more intriguing premise, than most of Franco’s proudly sadistic work. But it still amounts to just a lot of artfully composed bleakness. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 27, 2022
Through no fault of Mr. Roth’s, his character isn’t interesting enough to sustain our involvement in the story. Neil’s detachment doesn’t intrigue us, it only detaches us in our turn. Read full review
50
Screen RantFerdosa AbdiJan 27, 2022
Ultimately, Michel Franco’s Sundown feels hollow and too nihilistic for its own good. Read full review
50
The New York TimesBeandrea JulyJan 26, 2022
Sundown lands more like a one-note thought exercise than a fully fleshed out story. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 7, 2021
As a character study of a man with good reason to wean himself off the very basic human instinct of hope and teach himself, even at some personal cost, to care for no one and nothing, Sundown gains texture from its stark setting in a seaside playground stained with blood. But of all the director’s films to date, this might be the most airless. Read full review
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