Honeyland
Contact Film | Release Date: July 26, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 4, 2019
A documentary about a Macedonian beekeeper doesn’t sound like one of the best films of the year, does it? But few movies capture the great wheel of nature turning with as much beauty and empathy as Honeyland, and fewer still show how easily the wheel can slip its track and come crashing to pieces. Read full review
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyAug 1, 2019
While the characters and events are real, the artful design of this film and its allegorical resonances seem to put Honeyland in its own genre – that of a real-life fable. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJul 25, 2019
The opening minutes of Honeyland are as astonishing — as sublime and strange and full of human and natural beauty — as anything I’ve ever seen in a movie. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 25, 2019
[A] lovely, heartrending movie. Read full review
100
The PlaylistGary GarrisonMar 29, 2019
There is an unassuming languidness to Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s anthropologic documentary about a rural Macedonian beekeeper, “Honeyland.” It’s a quiet and passive film that’s content to luxuriate in place and revel in solitude, which, in turn, both drags the narrative’s loose pacing and instills a certain natural structure that, once embraced, becomes almost mesmerizing. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 22, 2019
Honeyland swarms with difficult, ancient truths about parents, children, greed, respect, and the need for husbandry. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeMar 29, 2019
The opening frames of Honeyland are so rustically sumptuous that you wonder, for a second, if they’ve somehow been art-directed. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenAug 22, 2019
Nimbly and unassumingly, this relatively straightforward anthropological study blossoms into both a socioeconomic commentary on the dangers of globalization and a biblically resonant parable about our relationship with the environment. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 19, 2019
Honeyland is an elegiac and gloriously photogenic tragedy, an environmental parable played out in striking images and stark lessons in the high desert of northern Macedonia. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerGary ThompsonAug 15, 2019
Like many a good documentary, Honeyland takes us to a faraway land and culture in a way that reveals what is distinctive and what is universal about people. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloJul 26, 2019
Honeyland is both an immersive experience and an undeniably gorgeous reflection on our relationship to nature. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonMar 29, 2019
As the world continues to suffer ever-increasing mass die-offs of honeybee colonies, Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s film reminds us that there’s indeed a better way to interact with our planet—one rooted in patience, tradition, and a true respect for our surroundings. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubCharles BramescoJul 23, 2019
Though Honeyland is also about what it’s about; in addition to underscoring another inconvenient truth with planetary stakes, the film offers tender, patient portraiture to a woman wholly dedicated to her calling. The melding of the political with the personal has seldom involved so many stingers to the face. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 29, 2019
This bitter and beautiful Sundance-winning doc focuses on a single beekeeper as though our collective future hinges on her hives. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansSep 26, 2019
No-nonsense beekeper Hatidze Muratova’s face is as weathered and craggy as the cliff face we see her scaling at the start of this gripping, Sundance-winning documentary. Read full review
80
EmpireHelen O'HaraSep 11, 2019
Stunningly beautiful and quietly powerful, this is a portrait of a vanishing way of life and of a determined woman who’s just trying to make her way in the world. Read full review
80
The GuardianCath ClarkeSep 11, 2019
Honeyland really is a miraculous feat, shot over three years as if by invisible camera – not a single furtive glance is directed towards the film-makers. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearJul 26, 2019
Poetic is a word that goes thrown around easily and abundantly, especially when it comes to documentaries that forego any sort of standard interview-clip-context-rinse-repeat format. But it’s hard to think of a better adjective to describe the early sequences of Honeyland. Read full review
80
CineVueRhys HandleyJul 25, 2019
The directors’ regard Hatidze with reverence and respect, allowing her the space to feel the tragedy and confusion of her plight and to sit with her melancholy as her life is changed by forces she cannot control. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenMar 29, 2019
As with any vérité portrait, there are many things that go unexplained. But the images tell us what we need to know: The unforced choreography between Hatidze and the bees. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiAug 28, 2019
The film ostensibly is about bees and honey and how that affects these families' lives and income, but what really hits home is a broader impact of humanity (in all its messy glory), and a document of so many things: grief, loss, happiness, and joy. Read full review
75
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsAug 6, 2019
Honeyland is thankfully too interested in the particulars of Hatidze to reduce her to demographic trivia. What matters, the movie tells us, isn’t that she’s exceptional in the trivial sense, but that’s she’s exceptional in who she is. Another message, to be sure, but one that finally rings true. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 5, 2019
The film by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov is a strange and curious thing: part fly-on-the-wall anthropology, part ecological fable. Read full review
75
The Film StageRyan SwenJul 25, 2019
It is entirely to Stefanov and Kotevska’s credit that Honeyland rarely comes across as a simple “individual tradition vs. societal modernism” narrative, even if the outlines show themselves on occasion. Read full review
75
The AtlanticDavid SimsJul 25, 2019
A sensitivity to both petty human concerns and striking natural beauty is what makes Honeyland a particularly enthralling documentary. Read full review
60
Little White LiesLillian CrawfordDec 29, 2021
Brief and to the point, Honeyland proves more meditative than its premise suggests. Read full review
60
Screen DailyStephen Whitty Jul 25, 2019
The result is a careful chronicle that, while staying true to its observational ethos, nonetheless, leaves plenty of questions – and, occasionally, its audience – behind. Read full review
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