Cold in July
IFC Films | Release Date: May 23, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Village VoiceErnest HardyMay 20, 2014
While Hall and Shepard nail their parts, Don Johnson, still magnetic after all these years, steals the film as a sardonic private eye with a vintage cherry-red convertible. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesBruce IngramJun 4, 2014
There’s a lot to admire in Cold in July, but its chief virtue is unpredictability. Most movies these days sleepwalk through their formulaic paces, but you’ll never guess where this one is going based on the way it begins. Read full review
80
EmpireKim NewmanJun 23, 2014
A character-driven thriller with more twists than an off-the-map dirt road, awards-quality performances from the three leads, a rare sensitivity to the after-effects of horror and a sure directorial hand. Mickle and Damici officially segue from ‘promising’ to ‘delivering’. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 29, 2014
It is a brutal, beautifully shot movie that starts out to be about revenge but then becomes something more, something even more primal and disturbing. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMay 23, 2014
Before you quite know what’s happening, you’re swerving into another sort of movie altogether. And then another. You might not buy them all, but what a great ride. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMay 22, 2014
Tense and violent, it grabs you from the first moments and rarely loosens its hold until the last body drops. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 22, 2014
One of those movies that arrives every now and then with no fanfare but a canny sense of how to grab our attention and hold it in a tightening grip. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanMay 22, 2014
"Dexter” fans will enjoy watching Michael C. Hall as a bumbling everyman terrified of violence. But there’s plenty more to appreciate within Jim Mickle’s gripping adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s pulp novel. Read full review
80
TheWrapJames RocchiMay 20, 2014
Cold in July never actually turns into the film you think it's going to, and even if that means there's a few unanswered questions ricocheting around your head as the credits roll, it also provides real, rich pleasures as it zigzags into the darkness. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonMay 20, 2014
Any film that teams up gruffer-than-thou icons Shepard and Johnson is bound to go heavy on the testosterone, but Mickle undercuts all this strident manliness with a rich vein of self-mocking wit and paternal angst. Read full review
80
VarietyScott FoundasApr 4, 2014
A superior piece of Texas pulp fiction that starts out like a house on fire, sags a bit in the middle, then rallies for an exuberantly bloody finish. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJun 4, 2014
The neo-noir Cold in July operates at a steady sizzle. A body turns up dead before the film’s opening credits: It becomes the opening salvo that propels the characters into a confusing vortex of guilt, revenge, corruption, and vice. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc MohanMay 30, 2014
While Shepard just does his grim, weathered, Sam Shepard shtick, and Hall seems oddly miscast as the tense, prickly Dale, Johnson's easy, gritty charm is a much-needed buffer between their colliding obsessions. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniMay 30, 2014
Pulp fiction doesn't come much better than Cold in July, a gritty, grisly - and perversely giddy - crime yarn directed by Pottstown-born indie-film provocateur Jim Mickle. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 29, 2014
Then there's the acting, particularly that of Sam Shepard, as an old ex-con without much in the way of limits. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMay 29, 2014
Cold in July has all the qualifications of a midnight movie in the making. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMay 22, 2014
The first half of Cold is tense and suspenseful, albeit in a conventional way; the second half is sickeningly compelling. It’s hard to watch and hard to look away from. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 22, 2014
Get ready to squirm. Be sure to seek out this twisty and terrific sleeper in theaters or on VOD. It's a real find. Read full review
75
USA TodayScott BowlesMay 22, 2014
July is solid throwback storytelling, a crime yarn that may not blow you away but can cut to the bone. Read full review
75
ObserverMatthew KasselMay 22, 2014
It has a seedy underbelly that will appeal to hard-core Mickle fans; it’s more deranged than it initially seems. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMay 21, 2014
Johnson ties some of the film's looser ends together and makes you overlook the ones that stay untied. Between "Eastbound & Down," "Django Unchained", and now Cold in July, Johnson has a nice little streak going of turning seemingly disposable characters into indelible scene-stealing rascals. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezApr 4, 2014
Cold In July doesn’t always work and it takes quite a long time to get adjusted to its coiling rhythm, but it’s far better than it has any right to be and perhaps, more significantly, is unusually absorbing and memorable. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen HoldenMay 22, 2014
As the movie’s resident live wire, Mr. Johnson, obviously having the time of his life, is a hoot, and the feisty camaraderie among these three men gives Cold in July a euphoric goofiness. Read full review
70
The DissolveNoel MurrayMay 20, 2014
Even as Cold In July’s overall arc approaches something of a dead-end, the individual scenes and performances are remarkable. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 21, 2014
As entertaining as it is to watch Cold In July drift, the film has to eventually pick a lane — and that’s where this otherwise accomplished suspense picture runs into the ditch. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 22, 2014
You may be put in mind of HBO’s recent “True Detective” — the low-down Southern locations, the time period (here the mid-1980s), some truly horrible crimes, a general air of diseased moralism — but Cold in July, while stylishly done, isn’t close to that good. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezMay 18, 2014
While Jim Mickle's compositions lose much of their verve in the film's later half, his regard for the analog does not--and at the expense of perspective into his characters' emotional torque. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsMay 23, 2014
The film's retro, John Carpenter-esque synthesizer score, composed by Jeff Grace, further pushes viewers away. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMay 30, 2014
I wouldn't expect many people to remember Cold in July come September, when the movie-award season gets underway. But as a guilty-pleasure May release? You could do far worse. Read full review
40
CineVueDaniel GreenMay 21, 2014
Though not without merit, Cold In July finds Mickle happily stalled in front of the drive-in cinema screens of his youth. Let's just hope he can find the exit. Read full review
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