|
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
63
Mixed:
16
Negative:
2
|
Watch Now
| Buy on |
|
| Stream On |
|
Critic Reviews
Apr 14, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Some of the best acting, directing and ephemeral atmosphere on television. There's so much to say about every episode of The Leftovers, much less to say about the first six episodes of a new season collectively, but the easiest thing to say is that it's not too late to tune in and be awed and confused.
Read full review
Apr 14, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Between the prospect of a definitive ending, the looming fear of catastrophe, and the continually exceptional performances, it’s bravura television that somehow follows the model of earlier seasons while subverting expectations. You might think you know where something is going, only to be completely disoriented a minute later.
Read full review
RogerEbert.comApr 14, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Breathtaking. ... Great visuals, complex themes, incredible performances—maybe there are ways to write about The Leftovers. And yet there’s still something about this program that can’t be put into words. There’s something almost religious about in the way you just need to see it, feel it, and believe.
Read full review
ColliderApr 13, 2017
UPROXXApr 11, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The new episodes don’t represent another radical leap forward in style or quality the way season two was, but whatever’s lost from the shock of the new (nothing here is quite as weird or surprising as the cavewoman prologue or “International Assassin,” though a joke in the second episode and a party sequence in the fifth come close) is gained in how much more we know all the characters at this point, and how aware they are of their proximity to their story’s end.
Read full review
Oct 2, 2015
Season 2 Review:
This is, if anything, a sequel to season one, one that shares some of the same cast members, a bit of the same tone, and a general sense of the world tipping off its axis, ever so slightly. It's a show that wants to provoke a reaction in you, whether it's admiration, hatred, or just bafflement. It's HBO's best drama--and thus must-see TV.
Read full review
Sep 30, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Each episode hits harder as a result [of the story told from the POV of only a specific subset of characters] while the narrative has gotten tighter. It's still a show defined more by emotion than plot, but structuring it this way--and moving most of the action to Jarden, which has many mysteries of its own--creates a sense of more momentum, rather than a bunch of characters wandering around in a daze.
Read full review
Apr 13, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The Leftovers grasps an outlandish idea with absolute emotional commitment: The performances in this final run are spectacular throughout, but especially Ms. Coon’s and Mr. Theroux’s. The final season sometimes repeats the first two, from the use of dream imagery to specific story beats like a business trip Nora takes (recalling “Guest,” a Season 1 standout episode). Because it depends so much on callbacks, it’s designed more to cater to the show’s faithful than to expand its flock.
Read full review
Oct 1, 2015
Season 2 Review:
It's a safe bet Lindelof and Perrotta have no intention of solving the new set of puzzles they introduce this season with such skill and grace. Thank heavens: Instead of expending energy trying to do a Sherlock Holmes, viewers can simply let themselves sink deeper and deeper into the mystery.
Read full review
IndieWireSep 30, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Season 2 chooses to explore and expand on a world created with painstaking clarity last season, at times trying to provide a unique viewpoint and at other times reintroducing established ideas (some of which can feel a slightly redundant).... That question--of if and how they can--remains steadfast. And with it, The Leftovers continues to forge its own fascinating path.
Read full review
Oct 2, 2015
Season 2 Review:
If the first season of The Leftovers sometimes felt insular, the second premiere instantly proves that the show is actually boundless. Just as the first-season cast balanced prickliness and empathy, it's easy to get into the Jarden version of the story because of the Murphys, a family led by the terrific Kevin Carroll and newly minted Emmy winner Regina King.
Read full review
Sep 28, 2015
Season 2 Review:
There are new mysteries aplenty, albeit ones with a more beguiling, Ray Bradbury-esque tinge than before.... This premiere does enough to make us want to find out. [2 Oct 2015, p.69]
Jun 30, 2014
Season 1 Review:
With only tiny snatches of dark humor in the early episodes, it’s sure to be too grim for some viewers. But for those who can take it, The Leftovers is fascinating and involving, like nothing we’ve seen on TV unless you think of it as the flip side of resurrection dramas such as “The Returned.
Read full review
RogerEbert.comSep 29, 2015
Season 2 Review:
It still gets a bit muddy sometimes--you can’t use a violin version of “Hallelujah” in this show--and episode three hints at that lack of focus from season one, but I’m more willing to go along for the complete journey than last year. The Leftovers has matured, becoming more about how good can come from awful, how we cannot linger in pain, and not just wallowing in grief and regret but identifying it and moving forward.
Read full review
Oct 1, 2015
Season 2 Review:
It’s hard to deny that The Leftovers can be both visually and emotionally arresting. It is also hard to deny that it is absolutely no fun to watch, a fact that doesn’t necessarily lead one to abandon it. The addition of a new family in Jarden/Miracle, the Murphys--headed by strong new cast members Kevin Carroll and recent Emmy-winner Regina King--is reason enough to tread lightly and see if Lindelof, et al, have worked out some of the kinks when it comes to pacing and payoff.
Read full review
Oct 1, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Not surprisingly, there are still worthy elements at work here, from the casting to the idea of a religious awakening and what amount to pilgrimages to Miracle in the wake of the departures. As with season one, however, the situations don’t progress in a cohesive manner, and the show feels equally disjointed in terms of style.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2014
Season 1 Review:
There's deliberate and there's plodding. This is plodding. Indeed, the jittery camera work and abrupt flashbacks almost take it from plodding to stumbling.... The acting styles differ greatly, yet none of the capable regulars hits a false note, whether playing subdued rage or over-the-top fervor.
Read full review
Jun 26, 2014
Season 1 Review:
We don’t get enough of a sense of the characters’ ordinary emotional lives, which means we can’t easily bond with them; we only see their feverish flares of anger and their smoldering discontent as the episodes run forward. If we could spend a few subtle minutes with a character such as Kevin, look into his eyes and feel his sorrow, the show would have a more honest emotional potency.
Read full review
RogerEbert.comJun 26, 2014
Jun 25, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Despite a big-name cast that includes Amy Brenneman and Liv Tyler, at times feels like less than the sum of its parts. At least initially, the series is driven largely by its tone (Max Richter’s score is especially helpful in that regard), and it’s bound to make people think, which is by itself something of an accomplishment.
Read full review
Jun 25, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Some of the bolder horror-movie devices admittedly hint at the development of a richer series.... But those thematics aren't allowed to consistently breathe, primarily because the characters too often function as obvious shorthand placeholders for viewer projection.
Read full review
Jun 27, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Lots of hearts are likely to harden in resistance to the calculated grimness, the nightmarish images. Not to mention the preening incoherence that pervades this script based on a novel by Tom Perrotta, a work whose measured tone bears no resemblance whatever to the goings on here.
Read full review
Jun 25, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Almost every moment here is staged to scream, “Look at me! I’m arty!” Lindelof, burned mightily by the backlash over “Lost’s” ridiculous finale, has all but told reporters that the mystery central to The Leftovers will never be explained. That leaves you with a show wallowing in smug self-importance, melancholy and drear week after week.
Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score