The Chronology of Water
The Forge | Release Date: December 5, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyDec 5, 2025
Even with all the sexual trauma, The Chronology of Water manages the impossible, making a lot of the sex Lidia has as an adult look not just fun and playful, but mind-blowing and revelatory. Reclaiming your sexuality after having it stolen from you as a child is a huge, huge deal. Read full review
100
The Film StageSavina PetkovaMay 29, 2025
Yuknavitch’s book is one of reflected pains and joys, a testimony to the resilience of a woman’s own body; Stewart’s filmmaking renders them not visible, not audible, but deeply felt. Read full review
91
The PlaylistRafaela Sales RossMay 17, 2025
No one is more seen in The Chronology of Water than Poots, who allows herself to be consumed with the urgency and hunger of Lidia. Read full review
90
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Saffron MaeveJan 9, 2026
The film is tragic, but not piteous. Stewart, by way of Yuknavitch, understands that memory and cinema are both instruments of time, able to chronologize a life that lurches on – a work that is made and unmade with each breath, each cut. Read full review
90
Screen RantPatrice WitherspoonMay 18, 2025
The Chronology of Water is a boisterous spectacle of the female experience directed with pure love and sincerity. Read full review
90
Rolling StoneDavid FearMay 17, 2025
If there is personal expression abound in Stewart’s debut, there’s also precious little ego. Nor are the tics that too often prick or sink the work of actors feeling out what it’s like to call the shots. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 17, 2025
The Chronology of Water invites us to experience each moment as if it were happening, but the movie is really telling the story of a spirit — the one that tries to survive, and become whole, through each moment. Read full review
88
The Travers TakePeter TraversJan 9, 2026
Kristen Stewart’s directing debut is not an easy sit, but with actress Imogen Poots, she creates an indelible, impressionistic film about a competitive swimmer that doesn’t follow tidy biopic rules or, let’s face it, any rules at all. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineJustin ClarkDec 2, 2025
The beauty of Kristen Stewart’s focus is how she excavates the profound from the mundane. Read full review
85
The Daily BeastNick SchagerDec 4, 2025
With star Imogen Poots vividly capturing the roiling contradictions born from her character’s crises, it’s a raw, rugged wound of a film. Read full review
83
Original-CinKaren GordonJan 15, 2026
Kristen Stewart makes an impressive directorial debut with her adaptation The Chronology of Water. The film is a raw, emotional primal scream anchored by a career highlight performance by Imogen Poots. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 17, 2025
The Chronology of Water can — and repeatedly does — churn itself to a forbidding standstill, and yet Poots makes every moment of it ecstatic in its immediacy. Read full review
80
EmpireIana MurrayFeb 10, 2026
An uncompromising debut that weaves Lidia Yuknavitch’s rich but troubled life into hypnotic poetry. Kristen Stewart reintroduces herself as an exciting filmmaker who’s out to make a splash. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJan 9, 2026
What obviously matters to Stewart is the totality of experience and The Chronology of Water, arty and naturalistic in equal measure, is no toe-dip into directing — it’s deep-end stuff from start to finish. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisDec 4, 2025
Imogen Poots’s fantastically expressive performance as the adult Lidia transforms this movie (the feature directing debut of Kristen Stewart) from punishing to mesmerizing. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 18, 2025
There’s a beguiling dichotomy in Kristen Stewart’s accomplished first feature as writer-director — between the dreamlike haze and fragmentation of memory and the raw wound of trauma so vivid it will always be with you. Read full review
80
Time OutChristina NewlandMay 17, 2025
It’s Poots who carries the story, giving heart and soul to a performance of a woman who cannot help but careen her way through life like a bull in a china shop. Read full review
80
TheWrapChase HutchinsonMay 17, 2025
Actors turning to directing is nothing new, but it’s unlikely you’ve seen a performer’s directorial debut as boldly confident and emotionally precise as Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Water. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 6, 2026
You can love or hate “The Chronology of Water,” but if you don’t come away from it marveling at the brilliance of Poots’s performance, you just weren’t paying attention. Read full review
70
Little White LiesHannah StrongFeb 4, 2026
There’s a potent earnestness about The Chronology of Water – Stewart shows a deep empathy for her subject, and Yuknavitch’s memoir is transformed with an unapologetic confidence. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJan 13, 2026
The film’s relentless intensity, its concentration on highs and lows, on extremes of sensation and emotion, is in itself a profound view of the very nature of trauma. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 17, 2025
Despite an honourable commitment to exploring how severe adolescent trauma casts a long shadow over a person’s life, the film’s patina of pain eventually grows repetitive, undercutting the sensitivity Stewart and her lead bring to the proceedings. Read full review
60
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 17, 2025
A too-close-to-the-case ardor for the material does the film a disservice, as can sometimes happen when a cherished object is adapted. Read full review
60
The TimesKevin MaherMay 17, 2025
You can’t lie in a close-up, which is lucky for Stewart. Because her lead actress, on camera throughout, expresses the kind of deeply moving primal agony and preternatural resilience that never once feels false, and ultimately compensates for the ostentatious nonsense around her. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 17, 2025
It borders on cliche a little, but there is compassion and storytelling ambition here. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 11, 2025
The Chronology of Water” can be more soberly appreciated on general release for Poots’ fearless, put-it-all-out-there performance than for Stewart’s early missteps and her exploitive mania for the explicit and the repellent, “truth” or fiction. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerDec 5, 2025
Stewart applies an admirably experimental vision to her adaptation, but she can’t translate whatever power she may have found in Yuknavitch’s text to the screen. Read full review
50
ColliderEmma KielyMay 17, 2025
All held together by a transcendent performance from Imogen Poots, The Chronology of Water isn’t the strongest directorial debut, but it does hold glimpses of what Stewart is capable of. Read full review
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