The World to Come
Feelgood Entertainment | Release Date: February 12, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
10
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 19, 2020
It's as simultaneously chilling and warming as a slug of ice-cold vodka, and just as liable to make your mind swim and eyes prick. Read full review
100
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 14, 2020
This is filmmaking as attuned to incremental shifts in light and landscape (Romania’s, in fact, gorgeously filling in for undeveloped upstate New York) as the ebb and flow of a character’s interior joy, written in a face unaccustomed to smiling. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 14, 2020
The World to Come is at its sharpest when trying to articulate the alchemy that happens when theory and sensation collide with each other and morph into something new. Read full review
90
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 14, 2020
Scripted with heightened literary cadences by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard, the film is well crafted in every respect, and marks an acting career high for Katherine Waterston, as well as a fine showcase for the ever more impressive Vanessa Kirby. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisFeb 11, 2021
In her sophomore film, director Fastvold, assisted by painterly cinematographer André Chemetoff, has envisioned a softer version of the American frontier, still untamed but capable of hope. It’s a befitting vision of a world to come, one in which forbidden love will one day finally find its name. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 14, 2020
Although arranged around a fulfilling, life-changing connection The World to Come is a deeply lonesome lovesong. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJul 26, 2021
This is a singularly subdued kind of storytelling. Passions run deep, but there’s a reticence in the film-making that makes them feel like a whispered secret in a church pew rather than a grand, soul-baring declaration. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 23, 2021
Fastvold’s film is distinctive in that she shows us how physical constraint and violence are part of the fabric of living. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsMar 8, 2021
The World to Come is full of inversions, deviations from the usual themes, complicated as it is by interlocking contrasts, unexpected emphases. This is a movie in which love springs in winter, whereas spring beckons devastation. Read full review
80
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergFeb 11, 2021
Waterston and Kirby are both superb at creating characters whose attraction must be shown to grow by degrees, without overt admission. Affleck and Abbott, too, navigate a tricky dynamic, playing men who perhaps lack an understanding of their own compassion or brutishness. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramFeb 4, 2021
An exquisitely rendered period tale, The World To Come is a slow-burning but ultimately rewarding drama of the heart. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 14, 2020
The World to Come is a ravishingly beautiful love story set in 1850s America, with painterly visuals that nod to the work of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattFeb 17, 2021
The immersive look of the film, with its strikingly unadorned landscapes and dim-lit interiors, casts a spell, and Waterston (the Fantastic Beasts franchise) and Kirby (The Crown, Pieces of Woman), bring both urgency and fragility to their constrained characters — two lost souls aligned and finding love in a hopeless place. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 16, 2021
With Romania standing in for 1850s New York State, The World to Come feels true to its time and place, and all four main players do a spectacularly good job of sounding and acting true to the time. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanFeb 9, 2021
There are early warning signs that “World” isn’t going to end well. But Fastvold, a Brooklyn-based Norwegian actress and filmmaker making only her second effort behind the camera, never gins up the sentiment, the melodrama or even the sensuality. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 14, 2020
It is a thoughtful, unquestionably moving piece of work with much to say about the inner lives of the women at the center, but it could have used another gear Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJon FroschSep 14, 2020
Much as I admired and was at times stirred by The World to Come, I'm convinced it would be a significantly stronger movie with 75 percent of the narration stripped away. Read full review
67
ConsequenceValerie ComplexFeb 9, 2021
The performances and Fastvold’s poetic and intimate direction make it worth the watch. Perhaps next time, though, she’ll write the script. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 22, 2021
Lovely as it sometimes is and impressive as the cast may be, it holds too few surprises and dramatic peaks to make it a stand-out in a genre that’s fast-becoming old 19th century hat. Read full review
62
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganMar 2, 2021
The World to Come doesn’t offer queer viewers anything revelatory in the realm of lesbian period romance—an increasingly prevalent subgenre that could stand to closely scrutinize the involvement of men behind its scenes—but its audiovisual creativity might very well justify Fastvold’s adaptation of yet another sad Sapphic story. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyJul 23, 2021
Arriving as part of the recent vogue for historical lesbian romances, The World to Come is better than Ammonite and rather more carnal than the chilly Carol, if not nearly as swooning as Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, nor as fascinating as Fastvold’s own writing. Read full review
60
CineVueMatthew AndersonJul 21, 2021
In Abigail’s longing to see beyond the high valley walls with the kind of scope of an atlas gifted to her by Tallie, The World to Come envisages a future reality not yet visible over the horizon, but shown as the slightest glimmer of light. Read full review
60
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMar 11, 2021
The film offers a small bit of emotional rescue at its very end—a graceful tribute to the escapes of memory and fantasy—but by then the dourness of its conclusions has blotted out any rounder sense of meaning. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleFeb 12, 2021
Though admirably sensitive to the inner lives of opened souls, The World to Come is more a journal with faded photographs than a past made vividly present. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeFeb 11, 2021
Their attraction seems more intellectual than physical, which keeps the film’s romantic energy at a lukewarm simmer throughout. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonFeb 25, 2021
Despite the terrific set design in The World to Come, the characters don’t feel at home in it; they do very little farm work, for example. Still, Waterston and Kirby do achieve an intimacy that operates as a warm fire warding off the chilliness around them. It’s too bad we were left out in the cold. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyFeb 12, 2021
You long for something evocative and warm throughout The World to Come, only to leave it with a minor shiver. Read full review
50
Film ThreatAlan NgFeb 9, 2021
There’s nothing new and nothing we haven’t seen, which means every single moment and plot twist is familiar and predictable. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiJan 31, 2021
The film presents a world that too often feels as if it’s a product of the present day. Read full review
40
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiFeb 11, 2021
The World to Come has the ingredients to build a blossoming love story, but the script is thin and far too rigid for the romance to ever fully soar. Read full review
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