The Road

Variety“This "Road" leads nowhere...” Except for the physical aspects of this bleak odyssey by a father and son through a post-apocalyptic landscape, this long-delayed production falls dispiritingly short on every front...

Total Film “It lacks McCarthy’s power...” Hillcoat’s ash-and-slime visuals are unable to harness the weight, the ruggedness, the pain and poetry of McCarthy’s spare, eloquent prose...

Time Out film“Just don’t expect to walk out smiling...” Stunning landscape photography sets the melancholy mood, and Nick Cave’s wrenching score reinforces it. But it is the performances that ultimately hold the film together. We expect this kind of selfless professionalism from Mortensen...

The Times“There are disturbing scenes of genre horror...” A Trojan-horse blockbuster that promises the wham bam of apocalypse while actually delivering the quiet pain of human intimacy, The Road might just be one of the most heartfelt end-of-the-world movies yet made...

The Telegraph“A disappointment...” The story is stripped down and allegorical — the two main characters are simply The Man and The Boy — but Hillcoat and scriptwriter Joe Penhall are unable to give the odyssey any existential dimension. It’s just a one-dimensional slog though mu

The Independent“All the acting, come to think of it, is exceptionally good...” The Road offers an allegory of misery and dread that is crushing, not because it denies humanistic feeling but because it defies cinemagoing pleasure. You would have to be mad – or just morbidly depressed – to recommend it to anyone...

Little White Lies“Enthralling and engrossing, if not without the occasional misstep...” Stooped beneath a burden of profound sadness, The Road is a tragic requiem for the death of civilisation. It is a post-apocalyptic road trip through a world of taunting memories...

Guardian“A brutal portrait of a dying planet stalked by starving, desperate men...” Hillcoat sometimes runs the risk of over-dramatising (I could have done without the plaintive music and the unnecessary slabs of explanatory voiceover). But no amount of window-dressing can distract from the tale's pure, all-consuming horror....

Empire“A heart-rending study of parenthood...” However stretched, tender moments between father and son ache with emotion, resonating as strongly as any of Hillcoat’s de-saturated visions of despair and terror. One of the most chillingly effective visions of the world’s end ever put on scree

Channel4 Film“The most powerful and moving post-apocalyptic film of the 21st century...” So much unrelenting grimness begs the question - why do you need to see this at all? The answer, perversely, lies in The Road's unshakeable humanity, and it's faith in the unconditional love that binds father and son to the end...