The Daily Beast by Esther Zuckerman

While you ponder the tragedy of what you just witnessed, you are left stunned by how talented Dickinson and Dillane are. It’s the kind of work that makes you excited to see what they do next.

Chicago Tribune by Katie Walsh

Dickinson, who became a heartthrob in movies like “Beach Rats,” “Triangle of Sadness” and “Babygirl,” announces that he’s much more than a pretty face, he’s got something to say, and the message of humanist compassion he delivers in “Urchin” is incredibly powerful.

RogerEbert.com by Brian Tallerico

Inspired by tales of people on the fringe by Mike Leigh, Sean Baker, and the Safdie Brothers, “Urchin” stays committed to presenting Mike’s story without frills, recognizing that it’s just a tragically common one of a man spiraling down the drain of society.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

Dickinson clearly hopes this story will make it that much harder for people to dehumanize the homeless population, but the power of his film — and the promise of his intelligence as a filmmaker — is that it recognizes how a portrait of mottled ambivalence might better accomplish that goal than a million cheap sops of empathy.

Time Out by Kaleem Aftab

Harris Dickinson steps behind the camera for a bruising, brilliantly strange debut that channels veteran auteurs like Jonathan Glazer and Andrea Arnold, while carving out a distinctive voice all its own.

Variety by Guy Lodge

The film makes no claims to represent an entire disenfranchised demographic, but there’s resonant human texture and political feeling in its close-up individual portrait.

TheWrap by Chase Hutchinson

This is a full character that Dillane and Dickinson have built from the ground up, where the little details of how he reacts to things can tear right through when you least expect it.

Screen Daily by Wendy Ide

This gritty social realist character study is spiked with striking and unexpected detours.

The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney

Urchin would be nothing without a gifted, vanity-free actor (the lead is the son of Stephen Dillane) who has clearly dug deep into the milieu of addiction and homelessness and is willing to go anywhere the script takes his character — from rapturous highs to desperate lows and all their consequent indignities.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

It is engaging and sympathetically acted and layered with genuinely funny moments, mysterious and hallucinatory setpiece sequences, and is challengingly incorrect thoughts about the haves who fear the contagious risk of coming into contact with the have-nots.