TheWrap by Ronda Racha Penrice

Unlike many previous films and TV shows that ponder the possibility of life on Mars, “Settlers” is thoughtful and nuanced, with Rockefeller posing extremely difficult (and resonant) questions about entitlement and even the future of human existence.

Film Threat by Alex Saveliev

With Settlers, Rockefeller and his crew have created a striking little treatise on our misguided ambitions.

Polygon by Roxana Hadadi

Rockefeller only repeats other science fiction, rather than inventing big ideas of his own.

Variety by Guy Lodge

n the ranks of cinematic journeys to Mars, Settlers ranks among the less fancifully and lavishly invented, yet it’s all the more effective for its earthly restraint: You can change the planet, Rockefeller suggests, but humanity stays pretty much the same.

Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray

The core question Settlers asks is who “deserves” to occupy this inhospitable planet. To Rockefeller’s credit, he doesn’t offer any pat answers.

Slant Magazine by William Repass

Settlers allows for weighty themes to play out inside a cramped domestic setting, wary of easy answers or moral platitudes.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

With Settlers, the filmmaker takes us on a journey as much internal as extra-terrestrial.

Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper

Ultimately, though, Settlers is more about setting a mood and painting a picture of hopelessness than explaining what happened before the story, what’s happening beyond the borders of the compound and what lies ahead for Remmy. It feels incomplete.

The New Yorker by Anthony Lane

Tense and firm at either end, it sags in the middle like a mattress. Also, the grownups are pretty dull and flat, their mood set to maximum glower; luckily, we have Remmy—played first by Brooklynn Prince and later, as a teen-ager, by Nell Tiger Free—to steer us through the doldrums and to energize the plot.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

Settlers isn’t perfect: some of the storytelling beats aren’t hit as clearly as they could have been. But it’s a quietly impressive piece of work.

RogerEbert.com by Brian Tallerico

With a strong cast and an intriguing premise that basically transports a Western plot into outer space, Settlers should work, but it simply sags in the middle, only barely sparking to life again in a more suspenseful final act.

Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker

Ultimately, the slow boil bleakness of the script, with its subtle ruminations of what it is to go on in a time of hopelessness, is what marks Settlers apart, even as it looks and feels like so many of the post-apocalyptic drought-plagued SF dramas of the last few years.

The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak

The thing about withholding plot information is that you must generally divulge that which you’ve held back at some point. To simply ignore that your audience is in the dark as far as the big picture is concerned is a sure-fire way to lose interest.

The New York Times by Lena Wilson

Settlers purports to challenge violence against women and colonialism. Instead, the female protagonist wallows in powerlessness for most of the movie, and a boxy robot is ultimately presented as more sympathetic than a displaced brown man.