Screen Daily by David D'Arcy

A tour de force of drama, composition and colour.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

As with most miracles, Sunset Song is more likely to evoke awe than any one particular emotion; it accumulates an immensely tender beauty that fills up your heart like water rising in a well during a rainstorm.

The Film Stage by Ethan Vestby

Even if the film is somewhat less impressionistic than director Terence Davies’ previous work, many compositions and gestures beyond just the easy-to-praise 70mm vistas feel destined to replay forever and ever in the mind.

TheWrap by Sam Adams

There are moments in Sunset Song that rank with Davies’ most poignant.

RogerEbert.com by Matt Zoller Seitz

One of the great director Terence Davies' best films: an example of old school and new school mentalities coming together to create a challenging and unique experience.

The Playlist by Nikola Grozdanovic

With his monumental control of the camera —at times staying with characters during quiet moments of anticipation, at others panning slowly 360 degrees to envelop us in the entirety of the environment— Davies directs the most refined coming-of-age story cinema has seen in recent years.

Screen International by David D'Arcy

A tour de force of drama, composition and colour.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

Like most of Mr. Davies’s films, Sunset Song makes you see the world through his sorrowful eyes. He is a die-hard romantic, whose acute sensitivity to the passage of time conveys a bittersweet awareness of the fragility of beauty, which, for him, is synonymous with melancholy.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips

Parts of Sunset Song rank with Davies' very best work.

Entertainment Weekly by Joe McGovern

The film takes a false turn in its final act, but there is a certain melancholy enchantment in Davies’ golden-hued countryside. When a crowd sings “Auld Lang Syne” at a wedding reception, he makes you feel the tender warmth of a hearth fire alighted in the world.

Empire by Ian Freer

Deyn is a revelation in a difficult but rewarding take on Scottish rural life. The most English of directors has done a Scottish classic proud.

Time Out London by Tom Huddleston

A lusty ballad of love and heartbreak sung with passion and power, and just a handful of off-key notes.

The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young

It is a rare director who dares to embrace the slow, meditative rhythms of a classic novel without feeling the need to modernize or accelerate it, but Davies uses the measured pace to unfold his poetic vision of the Scottish peasantry and their attachment to the land.

Slant Magazine by James Lattimer

Terence Davies's sheer talent for creating sensuous images conveniently masks how little of this feeling actually emerges from the plot these images illustrate.

The Telegraph by Tim Robey

There are gorgeous things about it, there’s one really good performance, and reminders of Davies’ transcendent style ripple through the film. But it also feels broken and cumbersome, weighed down by a number of decisions that simply don’t work.

The Guardian by Henry Barnes

It’s all fairly indulgent. But Sunset Song also has a viciousness that stops it falling too deep into a slumber

CineVue by Ben Nicholson

While there is hardship and anguish, Davies' deliberate and treatment of the source material ultimately lessens the dramatic impact even while it retains its splendour.

Variety by Peter Debruge

In full anamorphic 65mm splendor, the resulting landscapes are lovely, as is the face of relative newcomer Agyness Deyn in the role of hardy Scottish heroine Chris Guthrie, although the underlying feelings are all but lost, rendered in a difficult-to-fathom Scottish dialect and withheld by Davies’ overly genteel directorial approach.