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The RoadMovie Reviews

Poster art for "The Road."
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Metascore®64 out of 100 | Generally favorable reviews

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    The Road evokes the images and the characters of Cormac McCarthy's novel. It is powerful, but for me lacks the same core of emotional feeling. Read full review

  • 88
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    While the film is not as resonant as the novel, it is an honorable adaptation, capturing the essence of the bond between father and son. Read full review

  • 80
    Wall Street Journal | Joe Morgenstern

    Between the two performances there's not a false note. Between the father and son there's an unbreakable bond. Though civilization has ended, love and parental duty shape the course of this fable, which is otherwise as heartwarming as a Beckett play shorn of humor. Read full review

  • 75
    ReelViews | James Berardinelli

    The movie The Road is nowhere close to its literary sire, but it's probably the best one could hope for from a movie version. Read full review

  • 70
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    Engrossing and at times impressive, a pretty good movie that is disappointing to the extent that it could have been great. Is this the way the world ends? With polite applause? Read full review

  • 67
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    There's enough foreboding in America right now to make sitting through a movie such as The Road seem like one more heavy burden that, frankly, no one needs. Read full review

  • 67
    The Onion (A.V. Club) | Scott Tobias

    Aas grim as The Road gets, Hillcoat goes a little soft at the wrong time. Someone like Michael Haneke would have no trouble embracing this material’s uncompromising dreariness. Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    The Road is a road you'll wish hadn't been taken. Not because anything's been badly done, but because there's a serious imbalance in the complicated equation between what the film forces us to endure and what we end up receiving in return. Read full review

  • 40
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    Except for the physical aspects of this bleak odyssey by a father and son through a post-apocalyptic landscape, this long-delayed production falls dispiritingly short on every front. Read full review

  • 30
    Village Voice | J. Hoberman

    Pale by comparison to an action thriller like "Children of Men" or gross out eco-catastrophe like "Land of the Dead," squandering its ready-made zombie scenario. Read full review

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