The Old Oak
Zeitgeist Films | Release Date: April 5, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzApr 8, 2024
It's as engrossing, thoughtful, heartfelt, angry, hopeful, and altogether valuable as his best work. If it is indeed Loach's farewell, it's one hell of a fine note to go out on. Read full review
91
Original-CinChris KnightApr 4, 2024
If The Old Oak is indeed the last film of the master, it’s a fitting sendoff for a director whose work will continue to echo for at least as long as Durham Cathedral has been standing. Read full review
90
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonApr 4, 2024
In place of magical thinking and a happy ending, The Old Oak serves up something harder: a meditation on hope. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleApr 14, 2024
As things play out, however, Loach and Laverty are realistic enough in their tale of invigorating compassion to grasp that, as difficult as it is to find and nurture hope, just as essential is recognizing the danger lurking in festering grievance. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradySep 29, 2023
The third part in a loose, geographically defined trilogy, as sensitively penned by Loach collaborator Paul Laverty, The Old Oak is a gentler film than the stark austerity painted by I, Daniel Blake or the chilling dissection of the gig economy in Sorry We Missed You. The film is, however, astute in its depiction of a disenfranchised community, ravaged by vulture property speculators and post-industrialisation. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 30, 2023
If this is the end of the road for a British filmmaking great, it’s a thoughtful, heart-filled finale. British cinema’s old oak still stands tall. Read full review
80
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 27, 2023
An intimate but ambitiously mounted ensemble piece, The Old Oak ranks among Loach’s foremost state-of-the-nation dramas. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 27, 2023
Loach and Laverty fervently argue that through solidarity and a recognition of real interests, British people can naturally show empathy to immigrants and refugees. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMay 3, 2024
If “Oak” brushes up against the fuzzy calculus of melodrama, Mari and Turner always wrestle it back to earth. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubBrent SimonApr 4, 2024
The Old Oak is a reminder that empathy isn’t merely about having the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and consider their perspective, it’s recognizing that one’s personal struggles extend beyond one’s own family and other people that look exactly like you. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckApr 3, 2024
Assuming it’s true, the film is a poignant and moving coda to a career spent chronicling personal indignities amid broader social ills like poverty and unemployment. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJake ColeApr 2, 2024
If Ken Loach has always erred on making his political views impossible to misconstrue, he also knows how to keep his dramas from spiraling too far outside of plausibility. Read full review
75
IndieWireSophie Monks KaufmanMay 27, 2023
Although a lot of the film feels like a breathless box-ticking exercise designed to Include Every Pertinent Fact, the chemistry between Turner and Mari leads to a relationship rarely seen in cinema: a platonic friendship between an older man and a younger woman born of mutual respect. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 6, 2024
With The Old Oak, Ken Loach goes out with one last, full-throated call for brotherhood and solidarity. It’s the most hopeful the old soldier’s been in years. Read full review
65
Paste MagazineBrogan Morris Apr 4, 2024
Though still a damning portrait of a country that has delivered its poor to the free market, The Old Oak is a comparatively gentle, reflective and even tentatively hopeful work. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 23, 2023
Loach is so cohesive here, in accommodating the expansiveness of all these social ills, that characters have an unfortunate tendency to become mouthpieces. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeOct 4, 2023
The final message of hope is resolutely upbeat and desperately needed. Read full review
60
EmpireJohn NugentSep 26, 2023
A fitting — and frustrating — end to an extraordinary career. Ken Loach’s powerful, poignant storytelling is occasionally stymied by his less subtle impulses. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 27, 2023
Ebla Mari, the actor who plays Yara, makes Yara’s despair over her missing and possibly murdered father, and her agony at having had to abandon her country, incredibly layered and precise. Her performance doesn’t allow us to phone in our empathy. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMay 27, 2023
What Loach adds to this scenario, as he’s done in most of his films, is a natural intimacy that goes beyond the issues to bring something human and emotional to the table. In its best moments, The Old Oak hits those powerful notes without pulling too hard on your heartstrings, with lived-in performances from a nonprofessional cast, including a few actors who were in the director’s most recent movies. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMay 2, 2024
It’s a fable that ties up too neatly to be believed, and it’s a story I’m tired of hearing. Read full review
40
Little White LiesMark AschOct 25, 2023
It’s a rosy, adoring view of pubs and clubs as explicitly, perfectly Marxist – a coal country – accented chorus rising in a single voice to inspire us all to a more perfect union. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 27, 2023
It’s not enough for Loach and Laverty to have their hearts so reliably in the right place. The Old Oak is sluggishly predictable in plot, but also sharply unsatisfying at the end. Read full review
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