Screen Daily by Allan Hunter

There is a spare, focused storytelling here that creates room to breathe.

The A.V. Club by Roxana Hadadi

This is an immersive portrait, buoyed by a central performance that’s hypnotizing in its sparse naturalism. What Basholli has made is a thoughtful, humanistic exploration of the fortitude needed to summon hope in a time and place resigned to hopelessness.

The Observer (UK) by Simran Hans

Basholli understands that healing is possible, even if closure isn’t.

The Irish Times by Tara Brady

Basholli’s simple, elegantly structured script and Alex Bloom’s cinematography places Gashi’s carefully calibrated performance in almost every frame.

Empire by Jake Cunningham

Hive cooks up a beautifully delicate rally for independence and justice, brought out through precise processes of the communal culinary experience. Although not entirely well balanced, it makes for nourishing, inspiring viewing.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

This is a richly intelligent drama, in which every word and every shot counts.

CineVue by Matthew Anderson

First-time writer-director Blerta Basholli’s feature is an expertly crafted, compassionate testament to the perseverance and defiance of its courageous female collective.

Time Out by Phil de Semlyen

Hive is never quite a feelgood film – the deep trauma that underpins it militates against any jaunty Calendar Girls vibes – but there is a tangible sense of joy as Fahrije begins to lead her fellow, long-suffering widows to a place of healing and the promise of better times ahead. And the comeuppance one or two of the menfolk get is definitely mood-enhancing.

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

Hive seizes and holds your interest simply through the drama created by sympathetic characters trying to surmount awful, unfair hurdles. Mostly, though, what holds you rapt is Gashi’s powerful, physically grounded performance, which lyrically articulates her taciturn character’s inner workings.

Film Threat by Hanna B.

Although, like its main character, Hive is more on the low-key and pensive side, it is nonetheless a gut-punching and measured film. It is about the consequences of warfare and the many wounds those who survive have to tend to in order to create a new normal after years of utter tragedy, such as the genocide and massacres that happened in many villages like Krusha during the Kosovo War.

The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young

It’s hard to think of a less dramatic subject to fictionalize, yet in its own quiet way, Hive builds a strong storyline around the self-reliance and determination of an uneducated country woman, played with glammed-down but riveting cool by a granite-faced Yllka Gashi.

The Film Stage by Orla Smith

Despite Gashi’s strong, stoic performance, it feels like the film is more interested in inspiring its audience than it is in gleaning insight into Fahrije’s psychology.

IndieWire by Ryan Lattanzio

While it certainly offers up a necessary-if-dour vision of patriarchy-dominated life in this particular corner of Europe, by-the-numbers storytelling and a flat, visual style occasionally lead to dramatic intertia. Still, Gashi is powerfully, effectively steely as a woman who must take matters into her own hands, even when they are tied by society.