The Homesman
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: November 14, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
8
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirNov 13, 2014
Jones, as always, knows what he’s doing. In only his second feature as a director, the laconic 68-year-old star has made a wrenching, relentless and anti-heroic western that stands among the year’s most powerful American films. Not everyone will like The Homesman, but if you see it you won’t soon forget it. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianJeff BakerDec 5, 2014
The Homesman is so stark and haunting to look at and listen to -- cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and composer Marco Beltrami support the story with career-best work -- that it's easy to miss the twists that blow across the screen. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 20, 2014
The Homesman is not an easy, comfortable viewing experience. That’s part of what makes it unique. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyNov 14, 2014
The Homesman doesn't play things safe, and that's a welcome change. Read full review
88
ObserverRex ReedNov 12, 2014
A grand, shocking saga of a movie, The Homesman is the kind they don’t make much anymore. Read full review
88
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreNov 11, 2014
Jones tells this story with care and a lack of hurry, a pace to fit an age when people traveled no faster than two mules pulling a wagon could carry them. It’s “True Grit” and “The African Queen” with a moment of “Lawrence of Arabia,” period-perfect and a total immersion in this world. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJan 9, 2015
On form as both director and actor, Jones crafts a mournful but moving hymn to the western. The feminist subtext, meanwhile, brings a fresh slant to the old genre. Read full review
80
TheWrapInkoo KangNov 18, 2014
Jones’ riveting Western is bleak and very nearly misanthropic, but it's also passionate, earthy, unpredictable, sensitive, and gloriously distinct. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 13, 2014
The Homesman is both a captivating western and a meticulous, devastating feminist critique of the genre. Read full review
80
Village VoicePete Vonder HaarNov 11, 2014
Glendon Swarthout’s 1988 novel offered a rare approach to those Old West stories by shifting the focus to the women and children who often bore its brunt the worst, and Jones has — for the most part — successfully captured this, often in devastating fashion. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 10, 2014
What matters most about The Homesman, which Jones co-wrote and directed, is how willingly, and movingly, he cedes the stage to Hilary Swank, as Clint Eastwood did in “Million Dollar Baby.” Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 25, 2014
With The Homesman, Jones has produced an original and cantankerously offbeat western which becomes increasingly beguiling as the road stretches on. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 25, 2014
Tommy Lee Jones shows some true storytelling grit in this superbly watchable frontier western; he has a muscular and confident command of narrative, driving the plot onward with a real whip-crack, and easily handles the tonal swings between brutal shock, black comedy and sentimentality. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 25, 2014
This beautifully crafted film intrigues as a story never told before and ratchets up dramatic interest through a succession of unexpected turns. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 25, 2014
The mood flits between solemn and rascally, and the pacing is measured: this is storytelling at a mosey rather than a trot. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 25, 2014
Unlike other actor-directors, Jones never seems to indulge excess on the part of his cast. Though the characters are strong, the performances are understated. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 27, 2014
The Homesman gives us a West devoid of gunslingers and heroes and hearth vs. hunt dynamics, and instead shows us people trying to get through their days alive and sane. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaNov 21, 2014
At a certain point, The Homesman will take you by surprise. By the end, a ferry ride across the Missouri River, it will take your heart. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 20, 2014
This odd, ungainly western is harsh in its details, wayward in the telling, yet increasingly powerful as it wends its way back East toward civilization. Read full review
75
Washington PostStephanie MerryNov 20, 2014
It’s an oddity, and all that strangeness is what makes the movie hard to shake. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 13, 2014
The Homesman lacks the scope and depth of Jones' dynamite 2005 directorial debut, "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada." But Jones and Swank, walking the tightrope between comic and tragic, ignite combustibly. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickNov 12, 2014
Very much a feminist Western — one painting a vivid picture of how difficult it was for even a strong and determined woman to survive in frontier days. Read full review
75
The PlaylistOliver LytteltonMay 25, 2014
While it’s an awkward, uneven picture, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a fascinating one. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 20, 2014
Jones is patient — the film could have ended in two or three places before it does with no great loss — but the effort required by the audience pays off. We see the familiar in a new, if harsh light. We can hardly ask for more. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriNov 17, 2014
For much of its running time, The Homesman doesn’t quite seem to know where it’s going. But once it actually gets there, it attains a hardscrabble nobility. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyNov 13, 2014
The film's difficulties are in the roiling emotions that run through it. Intimacy and the interdependence required to survive a harsh environment are more easily achieved. Swank and Jones, in particular, are a very good odd couple, playing saint and sinner, sometimes reversing the roles. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 12, 2014
Integrity and personality can go a long way, especially in a movie as unquestionably flawed as The Homesman. Tommy Lee Jones’ off-beat minor-key Western has plenty of virtues, but straightness isn’t one of them. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnMay 25, 2014
Jones' alternately skillful and irreverent approach results in a mixed bag of possibilities, with many terrifically entertaining on their own even as the overall picture remains muddled. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 4, 2014
The Homesman, director Tommy Lee Jones’ drama about the hardships of pioneer life in 1850s Nebraska, goes from deathly dull to shocking to intriguing to “Look, there’s Meryl Streep in a bonnet!” Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereNov 20, 2014
While it’s true that landscape is character in most westerns, it’s also true that the character played by director/co-writer/star Tommy Lee Jones in The Homesman is landscape itself. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 20, 2014
This one's a margin Western. Frustratingly uneven, rarely dull. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayNov 9, 2014
If there's any ambiguity to be found in the film's prolonged last gasps, which reach for tragedy, but only sow more epistemic confusion, it's of a mawkish and unpalatable variety. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottDec 5, 2014
Flaws aside, the journey will be largely worth it for audiences, particularly for fans of the genre. Read full review
60
EmpireGuy LodgeNov 17, 2014
Another solid directorial effort from the occasional filmmaker. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNov 13, 2014
The screenplay, adapted from Glendon Swarthout’s 1988 novel, lacks its heroine’s rigid spine. The story buckles in the latter half. As a result, we wind up watching two very different movies. The first forges ahead with Cuddy’s fiery righteousness. The second takes a much safer route, in which her pioneering spirit is sorely missed. Read full review
60
The DissolveMike D'AngeloNov 11, 2014
There’s a wishy-washiness to the film’s ideological bent that keeps steering things in a more conventional direction, as if Jones (or perhaps Glendon Swarthout, who wrote the source novel) were afraid to take this risky material all the way. It’s a decidedly bumpy ride to an odd destination. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 4, 2014
The Homesman isn't as confident with balancing madness and dark humor as Jones' only previous directing job, 2005's border odyssey The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. This movie's switchback plotting ambles from crisis to comical, threatening to maintain a tone but not for long. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 19, 2014
With her sad, haunted eyes and ''plain as a tin pail'' looks, Swank is by far the best thing in the movie. More than most actresses, she seems unburdened by vanity. Read full review
50
Film.comJordan HoffmanMay 20, 2014
The Homesman certainly wins a few points for trying a different type of Western. There are no greedy land barons and no gunslingers drawin’ at high noon. But being unique isn’t enough if the story remains uneven and the characters don’t feel real. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichMay 25, 2014
The script—which Jones, Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley Oliver adapted from Glendon Swarthout's 1988 novel—shifts uneasily between tragedy and comedy. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigNov 13, 2014
The Homesman aims for a story that's poignant and told sparely, but comes across as mawkish, tedious and self-indulgent. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 13, 2014
Never mind the awfulness of the three madwomen being relentlessly mad, or the silliness of their journey’s logistics; not for a moment do you believe that this grievously afflicted trio actually inhabits what amounts to a small, rickety and unadorned paddy wagon. What’s definitively awful is the spectacle of unrestrained vanity. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 20, 2014
The film occupies that peculiar space that many of us would prefer to believe doesn’t exist, a movie that’s worthy but often inert, by turns enriching and enervating: a good boring movie. Read full review
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