Dark Days Image
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 8 Ratings

  • Summary: For years, a homeless community took root in a train tunnel beneath New York City, braving dangerous conditions and perpetual night. DARK DAYS explores this surprisingly domestic subterranean world, unearthing a way of life unimaginable to those above. Through stories simultaneously heartbreaking, hilarious, intimate, and off the cuff, tunnel dwellers reveal their reasons for taking refuge and their struggle to survive underground. Filmed in striking black and white with a crew comprised of the tunnel’s inhabitants and scored by legendary turntablist DJ Shadow (Endtroducing…), Dark Days remains a soulful and enduring document of life on the fringe. (Oscilloscope Pictures) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 22
  2. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. 100
    Black and white has never looked more stark.
  2. It's remarkable for where it takes us, how it takes us there.
  3. 80
    Designed neither to warm your heart nor shelter you in the comfort of liberal guilt, the movie does what so many style-conscious, "subjective" documentaries have long forgotten how to do. It shows you a world, and stays the hell out of it.
  4. 60
    Arresting, visually accomplished documentary.

See all 22 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. AlexK.
    10
    An amazing movie. The incredible and artistic cinematography aside, Dark Days accomplishes something so fundamental that most new documentaries seem to have forgotten: A story. We follow the lives of characters who we get to know and understand, and the movie follows a linear storyline that actually makes us interested in what's happening next, instead of the usual "seen five minutes seen it all" syndrome. Even accomplished filmmakers (ie, the Hughes Brothers and their neatly structured "American Pimp") cannot create the disturbing magic that Singer did. Collapse
  2. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I caught this on tv this week and thought it was really good, on the whole. There were a couple of characters that I wanted to slap (the guy with the portable tv and tommy who needed to get some ambition). It felt a little like Extreme Makeover Subway Edition and I wonder how they are getting on paying bills in their apartments after they were torn from Thursday homes!!! Expand

See all 3 User Reviews