Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

Jacques Audiard’s superb drama, which won the top prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, rises to the challenge with the power of art and not a scintilla of sentimentality.

The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton

This really is Audiard operating at the top of his game, mostly dropping the contrivances of "Rust & Bone" for incisive character studies and a deeply humane, almost warm, worldview.

The Film Stage by Zhuo-Ning Su

Clear-eyed, tightly wound, and cinematically and psychologically immersive, it’s a furious ride of a movie that actually has something to say.

Screen Daily by Allan Hunter

Proceeds without flashy tricks or showy technique, offering the pleasures of captivating storytelling with an irresistible human pulse.

Screen International by Allan Hunter

Proceeds without flashy tricks or showy technique, offering the pleasures of captivating storytelling with an irresistible human pulse.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

[Mr. Audiard] makes popcorn movies disguised as art films, and vice versa. Dheepan is a bit like a Liam Neeson revenge-dad action thriller directed by the Dardenne brothers. I mean that in the best possible way.

TheWrap by Robert Abele

Though Dheepan is another triumph for Audiard, it could have just as easily not worked had its leads not been so affecting

Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea

The final third of Audiard's drama falls into crime-drama mode. It is tense and violent. But even if it feels true, given Dheepan's history with the Tamil Tigers, it also feels a little beside the point.

Washington Post by Ann Hornaday

There’s no doubt that Audiard has invested a story of grief, dispossession and desire with immediate, almost tactile, urgency. Like the best fiction, it takes the most incomprehensible stories of our time and makes them hauntingly, inescapably clear.

Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

For most of the movie, Dheepan, for all its flaws, is hard-hitting in ways that count. It has the intimacy of a personal drama but the amplitude of a much larger immigrant odyssey.

Village Voice by Bilge Ebiri

Ultimately, Dheepan is the story of three people struggling to maintain their humanity, even as they lose their identities.

Empire

Once again Audiard articulates big themes within a mosaic of everyday struggles. A painful yet rewarding tale of social strife and uplifting resilience.

The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney

It shows Audiard once again drawn to resilient people in punishing situations, and its arc from the opening images of death to its final notes of hope and wholeness is quite moving.

The Guardian by Andrew Pulver

This may not be the director’s most immediately electrifying film, but in its understated way, it’s an immensely powerful work.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

This is a strong movie about a man in need of a new start, made by someone who could benefit from one of his own.

Variety by Scott Foundas

What keeps Dheepan engaging throughout is the tremendous charisma of the performers.

Slant Magazine by Jesse Cataldo

Jacques Audiard's film struggles to overcome the burden of its over-simplified, moralizing setup.

CineVue by John Bleasdale

A mix of Loachian social realism and Death Wish-style violent fantasy.