The Holdovers
Focus Features | Release Date: October 27, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 61 Critic Reviews
Positive:
57
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireNick de SemlyenDec 8, 2023
Hunham’s hero Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing.” Take his advice and see this film. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 1, 2023
Filmed in subdued tones of burnished browns, The Holdovers might best be described as the movie version of that favorite pair of corduroys that miraculously still fit: stylish, if a little worn in places, softened by time and made more generous by the life lived inside them. Read full review
100
ObserverOliver JonesOct 26, 2023
When it’s over, the chill it leaves in your spine is destined to last nearly as long as the smile on your face. Read full review
100
The New York TimesWesley MorrisOct 26, 2023
There’s a sharpness to the comedy, some attitude and freshness, some wisdom. That maybe comes, in part, from the kids looking a little older than their characters are. It also comes from Payne’s emotional finesse. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinOct 13, 2023
Giamatti isn’t playing a type, so much as a man who has taken refuge inside one in order to armour himself against the more exposing aspects of human existence. It’s a riotous but also slyly moving performance of a performance – and, along with Randolph’s, is rightly being talked about for awards. Read full review
100
Total FilmEmily MurrayOct 13, 2023
The Holdovers is a loving testament to the power of the human spirit, albeit one that favours subtle, melancholic grace notes over any need to shout. Though tinged with sadness - be prepared to shed a tear - it’s sure to become a feel-good, festive favourite. Read full review
100
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 14, 2023
Funny and rueful, The Holdovers seems beamed in from another time in cinema history, when wordy and thoughtful little movies like this were in healthier supply. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 3, 2023
The Holdovers is a film about class and race, grief and resentment, opportunity and entitlement. It’s that rare exception to the oft-heard complaint that “they don’t make ’em like they used to.” Read full review
95
SlashfilmBarry LevittSep 11, 2023
The Holdovers is proof that we need more thoughtful, studied, loving, and irresistible human stories on screen. It certainly helps, however, when Alexander Payne is at the helm. Read full review
91
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerOct 25, 2023
The Holdovers is the easiest possible recommendation, a perfect time capsule of a kind of movie that may not be totally extinct. Read full review
91
ColliderRoss BonaimeSep 10, 2023
The Holdovers is a wonderful revelation from an excellent director who proves he’s still able to take us by surprise. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyMaureen Lee LenkerSep 2, 2023
Life is messy, and The Holdovers never loses sight of that truth. But the film never becomes self-indulgent either. Read full review
90
CNNBrian LowryNov 3, 2023
The movie lives up to both halves of its title: The Holdovers gets a hold on you, while looming over most stories built around the simple idea that families are often defined by what you make of them, not what you inherit. Read full review
90
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 1, 2023
There is a joy watching interesting people change for the better while in a carefully crafted environment . . . and Payne knows just how to balance the sour and sweet. Read full review
90
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 27, 2023
A few belly laughs abound, but it’s the deep care for its characters that makes The Holdovers really sing. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 24, 2023
If one definition of art is seeing what everyone else does, only in a different way, The Holdovers fits that bill. It’s a delight. Read full review
90
Paste MagazineKatarina DocalovichSep 18, 2023
If Election is a shot of tequila, The Holdovers is a slow succession of sips of bourbon that you don’t realize have affected your spatial awareness until you get out of your armchair. Read full review
90
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaSep 14, 2023
Alexander Payne finds deft balance with The Holdovers, in which every glance and verbal exchange may as well be set up for something equally hilarious and touching. Read full review
90
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 14, 2023
The Holdovers is crushingly wistful in precisely the way moviegoers have come to expect from Payne. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleNov 2, 2023
The Holdovers is a warm blanket on a sad day – an unconventional Christmas movie that finds reasons to move forward even in the hardest of times. And while students of the dramedy may anticipate its every narrative turn, there’s something magical about a film that encourages empathy, especially when it asks much of us. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenNov 15, 2023
If The Holdovers is about anything, it’s about the hard, hard work of small acts of kindness. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 2, 2023
While Holdovers is plenty funny, Payne’s film – as with his “Sideways” – skillfully balances the humor with headier themes of personal loss, family strife and mental health. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 1, 2023
This movie’s religion, if it has one, is the Church of Performance, and Giamatti, Sessa, Randolph and company make it worth attending. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 1, 2023
It’s the kind of movie in which stories are conveyed wordlessly through a half-smile, a droopy posture, a man who looks for just a few seconds like he might cry but doesn’t — a film made all the more heartwarming for the work it takes to get to its heart. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonOct 30, 2023
The Holdovers feels like a movie Ashby might have made. Read full review
88
ABC NewsPeter TraversOct 27, 2023
Paul Giamatti is absolute perfection as a Grinchy teacher who learns a hard lesson in empathy over a winter school break. All the actors shine in this exuberant movie gift from director Alexander Payne that has all the makings of a new holiday classic. Read full review
88
The Associated PressLindsey BahrOct 23, 2023
Payne, working with a sharp script written by David Hemingston, keeps The Holdovers grounded and real. Even absent your own memories of smoking indoors or handsewn outerwear, this is the kind of thoughtful, precisely constructed movie where you can almost taste the cigarette smoke and feel your fingers numbing through drafty wool mittens. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 14, 2023
The Holdovers is a consistently smart, funny movie about people who are easy to root for and like the ones we know. Its greatest accomplishment is not how easy it is to see yourself in Paul, Angus, or Mary. It’s that you will in all three. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 13, 2023
There are a couple plot threads I found weird — particularly in the final push — that don’t land as powerfully as they intend to. But the resolution is immensely satisfying regardless of a few blips. It’s Payne’s finest work in years. Read full review
85
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 11, 2023
Its sentimentality expertly balanced by its humor, The Holdovers is a story about the lies we tell ourselves (for good and ill) and the reality of our not-so-dissimilar human conditions. Read full review
83
Original-CinJim SlotekOct 30, 2023
Add a bit of road movie misadventure, a la Payne’s Sideways, and you have a Christmas movie with spirit and wit, with a minimum of mawkish sentiment. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubManuel BetancourtOct 27, 2023
The Holdovers may peg its tale on a truism that can feel trite (you never know what others are going through). But Payne, Hemingson, and its central trio of actors find welcome nuances within that platitude. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJan 21, 2024
There’s a bracingly astringent bleakness under its surface layer of melancholy humour; a biting, sharp edge that counters the occasional lurch towards sentimentality. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyJan 18, 2024
It’s lovely, if a little practised. Yet, the real gutting here comes courtesy of the film’s miniature thesis on grief, and how privilege determines the channels of its pain. Read full review
80
Little White LiesLillian CrawfordJan 18, 2024
The trio’s company is so embracing that it is hard to say goodbye. The benefit of the Yuletide setting is that Payne has gifted us a film intended to be watched every year. It feels like finding an unwatched classic under the tree on Christmas morning. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJan 18, 2024
An absolute treasure. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 18, 2024
What a unique talent Giamatti is; it’s a pleasure to see him play a movie lead, his first for a while, and his prominence in this really good film is a signal that the cinema could be moving back to a more approachable world of authentic drama and analogue talent. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensNov 9, 2023
For all its cutting dialogue and its initially off-putting protagonist, The Holdovers is a cozy cardigan of a movie. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenNov 8, 2023
The Holdovers is a triumphant comeback story for Alexander Payne, too. The director bounces back from 2017’s misfiring Downsizing to find his tone – a rare kind of jaded hopefulness – with all his old assurance. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 1, 2023
It becomes more of an actor’s showcase, in other words, which has always been one of Payne’s strengths — he’s an old-school director of performers, with a penchant for conjuring memories of several old schools in particular. Read full review
80
ScreenCrushMatt SingerOct 28, 2023
The frame is filled with observed but uncommented-upon details . . . The film seems to exist in a real world populated by fully dimensional people. Read full review
80
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 27, 2023
What enlarges Giamatti’s performance, and makes it ultimately more than a glorified comic turn, is how he gradually articulates Paul’s self-awareness for us. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAndy HowellOct 3, 2023
There’s a reason 70s cinema is so revered for astounding character studies. In this age of superheroes, it is nice to have a throwback that lets us see some normal humans working out their differences the old-fashioned way — by being stuck together. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreSep 12, 2023
There are surprises to be found in The Holdovers, but they come from the characters, not the story — from the ways each of the three main figures reveals new depths and confounds expectations. Read full review
80
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 11, 2023
There’s an emotional restraint in both the performances and the film surrounding them, despite the time of the year, and when a light sprinkling of sugar does come in the last act it feels earned. Read full review
79
TheWrapTomris LafflySep 3, 2023
Although it might promptly be added to your holiday movie rotation as a new staple, The Holdovers doesn’t exactly feel like a new classic—it feels too familiar for that. Still, it does something tried-and-true so well and affectionally. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 31, 2023
Although at times overly talky, The Holdovers on balance is a charming and smart comedy/drama that is set in 1970 and actually looks like it was made in 1970, from the scratchy opening titles through the grainy-looking visuals, which were achieved through a combination of old school lenses and digital post-production magic. Hal Ashby (“Harold and Maude,” “The Last Detail”) would have been proud. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 30, 2023
Although aspects of the overall storyline wallow in familiarity, the sharpness of the writing, the precision of Giamatti’s portrayal, and the well-honed relationships among the principals make the movie better than one might assume from a one or two-sentence summation. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 23, 2023
Here and there, there are moments when the energy dips, but what carries the film from scene to scene are the truthful performances and the genuineness of the storytelling. Read full review
75
The Film StageEthan VestbySep 11, 2023
If far from revelatory, it nonetheless contains a good deal of likability and honesty. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 3, 2023
The vibes are immaculate from the start and only grow more so as the characters gradually start to become as detailed as the world that “The Holdovers” constructs around them. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 27, 2023
The fact that characters are provided with statutory secrets, to be disclosed at nicely timed intervals—as happens with Hunham, Angus, and Mary—does not guarantee any intensity in the revelation. The leading players here, however, bring force and grace to the task. Read full review
70
Screen RantNadir SamaraOct 2, 2023
The Holdovers won’t blow you away in any particular category of filmmaking, but in the capable hands of Payne, every one of these categories is above average, making the overall film equally enjoyable and well-made. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 3, 2023
It is an engaging and often touching comic drama that builds power as it moves toward its immensely satisfying conclusion. Read full review
67
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 3, 2023
The movie is genuinely funny. The characters are well rounded. Giamatti inhabits Hunham so well he could crack zingers in his sleep. Randolph knows exactly what she’s doing and Sessa is just green enough to avoid the affected young actor syndrome. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 10, 2023
Whatever leftovers The Holdovers serve up, Payne and his once-and-future-muse Giamatti make this cinematic comfort food perfectly palatable. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineMark HansonSep 15, 2023
The Holdovers is ultimately a story about the absence of family, and as it watches three individuals come together and apart, it’s subtly attuned to the way that class constricts people’s lives. Read full review
60
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 1, 2023
The calculated silences and cagey revelations result in a movie of truncated characters, with truncated subjectivity, trimmed to fit the Procrustean confines of the script. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekOct 30, 2023
Like most of Payne’s movies (Sideways, The Descendants, Nebraska), The Holdovers is merely coated with a thin veneer of misanthropy that Payne methodically buffs off to reveal actual human feelings. It's the mechanism that works for him, but that doesn’t make it a good one. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithOct 27, 2023
There might be a sweet 90-minute movie in here somewhere. But as it stands, it’s impossible not to notice how many scenes limp along, how many have nothing to do with the previous one, and how many fizzle out. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 26, 2023
The Holdovers is a flat, phony, painfully diagrammatic movie masquerading as a compassionate, humane one. Read full review
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