You Won't Be Alone
Focus Features | Release Date: April 1, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
3
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The GuardianLuke BuckmasterSep 22, 2022
There’s a feminist undercurrent in You Won’t Be Alone, its observations of the patriarchy emerging in ways totally germane to the experience. An odd kind of eroticism also emerges: neither sensual nor entirely gross, and certainly not from the male gaze. Sometimes the film doesn’t even feel like it’s from a human gaze. Read full review
100
Time OutStephen A. RussellJun 20, 2022
Beating with a wild and restless energy, the film’s fearsome but ferociously beautiful heart marks the emergence of a rare and remarkable talent. Read full review
100
Vanity FairRichard LawsonApr 8, 2022
Rather than weak imitation, You Won’t Be Alone is a bold and compelling—and reverent—repurposing of Malick’s technique, turning its gaze on matters more squishy, profane, and fallibly human than Malick’s high-minded considerations of the divine. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshMar 31, 2022
It is startling, and sometimes disturbing, but hits a place that is intensely human — bittersweet and bloody and beautiful at once, and unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Read full review
100
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisMar 31, 2022
You Won’t Be Alone, the ravishing, wildly original first feature from Goran Stolevski, moves so hypnotically between dream and nightmare, horror and fairy tale that, once bound by its spell, you won’t want to be freed. Read full review
100
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJan 26, 2022
It’s a deft and thrilling conceit, experiencing the highs and lows of life through different people. Stolevski, in a film that feels less like a debut and more a late-stage magnum opus, has found an ingenious vessel to make profound observations on gender, sex and being. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 26, 2022
The film’s last act brings everything full circle in a way that should satisfy both horror and art-house audiences, but then the movie, like its protagonist, is never content to be just one thing. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyJoshua RothkopfJan 28, 2022
The movie also gets deeper and more emotional as it goes, becoming a metaphor for restless empathy and non-binary points of view. You Won't Be Alone is a fitting title, bearing the ominous warning of a juicy thriller, but also a subtle sense of compassion. It's a big world and you won't be alone, if you let the witches in. Read full review
91
IndieWireRyan LattanzioJan 26, 2022
It’s a challenging movie, but one so overflowingly empathetic for even its cruelest characters that the emotional beats outweigh the headier structural conceits that make for a narrative often hazy, out of reach, and gorgeously weblike. Read full review
91
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJan 26, 2022
With its painterly, brutal beauty and folk-horror underpinnings, it’s tempting to dismiss Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone as “Terrence Malick’s The VVitch.” But it’s so much more than that, a devastating yet highly-attuned exploration of the brutality of the world, and our yearning for identity and connection to protect us from nature’s capriciousness. Read full review
90
PolygonJoshua RiveraFeb 3, 2022
It’s very difficult to walk away from You Won’t Be Alone without wanting to fill a notebook with its words and recollections of its images. It’s a film of wonder, of watching, mimicking, and soaking in awe. Read full review
90
Screen DailyAllan HunterJan 26, 2022
You Won’t Be Alone’s strength lies in Stolevski’s ability to balance the gore with the humanity. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 30, 2022
You Won’t Be Alone can be ghoulish at times, but also gorgeous, in the swooning manner of a Terrence Malick film: all grass and leaves and sky and water, captured by tumbling camerawork that evokes the wide-eyed wonder of someone experiencing the world for the first time. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 29, 2022
Despite never previously having made a feature film, Stolevski’s sure-handed approach delivers a winner. He takes chances, doesn’t underestimate his audience, and tells a story worth telling. Read full review
83
Original-CinKaren GordonMar 30, 2022
Shapeshifting, murder, possession, gender fluidity and the lowly lot of women are all part of the arthouse horror You Won’t Be Alone, the impressive debut feature film by Macedonian-Australian writer/director Goran Stolevski. Read full review
80
CineVueMartyn ConterioOct 20, 2022
It’s wholesale thievery of what is a director’s famed aesthetic, for sure, but it does somehow fit the lyrical and haunting material, often beautifully so. Also, the shallow field of depth used to heighten – and blur – the boundaries between the magical world and the natural world is successful in creating rich atmospheres. Read full review
80
IGNRyan LestonJun 2, 2022
Less of a straight-up horror movie and more creeping dread, You Won’t Be Alone explores the spectrum of human emotion with an otherworldly curiosity. Perhaps it takes someone on the fringes of society to find out what it really means to be human. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 30, 2022
Impressionistic, unconventional and often downright weird, it’s most of all an exploration of humanity — what that means and how it is achieved. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesJan 26, 2022
Stolevski depicts the young creature’s journey toward humanity with sensitivity and increasing investment. Read full review
78
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganJan 26, 2022
Though its leisurely pace and sinuous storyline might test the audience’s patience, the Macedonian-Australian filmmaker packs his folk horror breakthrough with enough guts and gore to keep eyes fixed on the screen. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleMar 31, 2022
You Won’t Be Alone enchants in its novel perspective and in its sharp-shifting protagonist’s unquenchable curiosity. The witch, once so set in stereotype, has never felt so enthrallingly elastic. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 31, 2022
In every design detail, the physical production and realization of You Won’t Be Alone really does take you somewhere. However unsettling, it’s a film that knows what it’s doing. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubLuke Y. ThompsonMar 29, 2022
Stolevski ably balances art-house and horror tones to a degree that fans of both will appreciate, but like the film’s pointedly empathetic point of view, his emphasis on each helps fans of one style understand and appreciate the other. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithJan 26, 2022
Throughout You Won’t Be Alone, writer-director Goran Stolevski rejects the slickness that defines so-called elevated horror. Read full review
67
ColliderTherese LacsonApr 25, 2022
You Won't Be Alone is overambitious, but it's always better to try to overachieve than underachieve, right? Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJenny NulfMar 30, 2022
Goran Stolevski’s dreamy debut You Won’t Be Alone is a poetic glimpse at generational trauma. Read full review
67
The Film StageBrianna ZiglerJan 26, 2022
Wearing influences heavily on its sleeve, this is a gorgeous, empathetic feature debut too reliant on what has paved the way for its existence. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyApr 1, 2022
You Won’t Be Alone announces the arrival of a fierce new genre talent, an inventive stylist and an unapologetic interrogator of mankind with something worthwhile to say. Read full review
60
Screen RantAlexander HarrisonMar 31, 2022
As strong as the movie can be when committed to the specificity of its characters and setting, it asks too many of the big, unanswerable questions at the heart of the human condition, and the further You Won't Be Alone reaches for the universal, the more chafing its grip on the viewer becomes. Read full review
60
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaJan 26, 2022
The problem is that You Won't Be Alone is a film about identity that doesn't have an identity of its own. It is far too indebted to other films. Read full review
58
The PlaylistRobert DanielsJan 26, 2022
Stolevski aims for a life-affirming treatise on the poetics of human existence but strains to be more than a pretty copy of his well-known influences. Read full review
30
TheWrapJan 26, 2022
You Won’t Be Alone may not be a dumb or unimaginative exercise in style, but it also rarely encourages viewers to engage meaningfully with whatever’s on-screen. Read full review
More From This Movie

82 Critic Reviews

6.6 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL