Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Focus Features | Release Date: March 13, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
92
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeSep 29, 2021
Perfectly pitched and sensitively played, this is truthful, powerful and profoundly moving fare from a film-maker at the very top of her game. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 29, 2021
There’s zero latitude in the spare, naturalistic script for actorly showboating – but the performances, as captured by French cinematographer Hélène Louvart’s searching, empathic camera, are quietly tremendous. Read full review
100
The Associated PressLindsey BahrSep 29, 2021
Never Rarely Sometimes Always isn’t a flashy movie, but that’s part of its unnerving power. With her empathetic camera and transcendent storytelling, Hittman elevates their story — so ordinary-seeming on the page — to a great lyrical odyssey. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 1, 2020
With empathy and outrage that cut equally deeply, Hittman reminds us: This is a girl’s life in a man’s world. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 1, 2020
The performance of Flanagan, a first-time actress, is both harrowing and possessed of an eloquence that has no need for words. You come away from this movie weeping for the Autumns of this world but awed by their endurance. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 12, 2020
In “Never Rarely,” the hurdles to an abortion are as legion as they are maddening and pedestrian, a blunt political truism that Hittman brilliantly connects to women’s fight for emancipation. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 12, 2020
This tough-minded, forthright and exquisitely tender film transcends polemics. It’s the odyssey of a lost child in poorly charted territory. Read full review
100
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJan 30, 2020
The glory of Hittman’s film is in finding those moments of beauty among the brutal silences, and the magnetic grace that can be found in a person’s most difficult days. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyMary SollosiJan 29, 2020
There’s no need to heavily editorialize here; Hittman is an assured enough filmmaker to portray this drama honestly and non-manipulatively, trusting her audience to interpret the complicated heartbreak of Autumn’s predicament without having to explain it to them. Read full review
100
VarietyAndrew BarkerJan 25, 2020
At once dreamlike and ruthlessly naturalistic, steadily composed yet shot through with roiling currents of anxiety, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a quietly devastating gem. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJason BaileyJan 25, 2020
What an extraordinary film this is. Read full review
95
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMar 26, 2020
It handles a tricky topic with so much persuasively unadorned compassion that it has the genuine potential to change hearts and minds about one of the country’s most contentious battles. Read full review
95
TheWrapRobert AbeleJan 25, 2020
Hittman wades into one of the more charged subjects of our time — abortion access — with the kind of sensitivity, focus and detail that will ensure its place as a dramatic standard for how to put a human face on a controversial topic. Read full review
93
PolygonKaren HanApr 3, 2020
The clarity and care with which Hittman handles a relatively straightforward story lends Never Rarely Sometimes Always an urgency greater than it would have if she tried to moralize about making proper care more easily accessible to (and less stigmatized for) women. Read full review
92
Paste MagazineIsabella Bridie DeLeoApr 16, 2020
Hittman’s work is remarkably precise. She does not focus on anything extraneous to the central drama of Autumn’s journey. Read full review
91
Original-CinKaren GordonApr 2, 2020
By not hammering on a hot-button issue, by avoiding turning this into a lecture, she has given us a movie about how some things in life come down to choices that are so intimate and personal that sometimes words won’t help you understand. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeMar 12, 2020
Abortion stories are real, and they take place every day, often so quietly that no one but those closest to the people involved even know they’re happening. The power of Hittman’s film lies in that combination of ordinary suffering and extraordinary strength. Read full review
91
IndieWireKate ErblandJan 25, 2020
Yes, it’s a searing examination of the current state of this country’s finicky abortion laws and the medical professionals tasked with enforcing them (from the small-minded to the big-hearted), and if art can have any impact on its consumers, the film will stick with many of its viewers, perhaps even changing long-held beliefs. But it’s also a singular look at what it means to be a teenage girl today, and with all the joy and pain that comes with it. Read full review
91
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 25, 2020
Hittman has provided an essential, specific look at just one person’s struggle to have control over her own body. By doing so with such a delicate, considered perspective, she’s giving a voice to millions of women going through the same experience. And it’s time to listen. Read full review
90
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 10, 2020
The friendship at the heart of this film, as indelibly portrayed by two brilliant young actresses — Flanigan is a wonder to behold, while Ryder nails just the right notes of supportive and warmly sympathetic — is a thing of beauty. Hittman’s urgent film is an emotional wipeout. It’s hard to watch. It’s also impossible to forget. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJan 25, 2020
The movie’s sympathies, much like its political convictions, couldn’t be clearer. But paradoxically, what makes “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” so forceful — and certainly the most searingly confrontational American drama about abortion rights in recent memory — is its quality of understatement, its determination to build its argument not didactically but cinematically. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJan 25, 2020
The teen-abortion factor tags Never Rarely Sometimes Always as an issue drama, and in the most unconventional way, it is — raw, haunting and painfully real. But it's perhaps better defined as a moving snapshot of female friendship, solidarity and bravery. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenApr 9, 2020
At first glance it’s as if the masterful Romanian abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days had been remade as a piece of scruffy American neorealism. But then comes The Scene. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 3, 2020
The beating heart of Never Rarely Sometimes Always isn’t Autumn’s struggle with terminating her pregnancy; it’s the way the two girls discover companionship and the strength it offers. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Tina HassanniaApr 2, 2020
Never hints at the quiet, revolutionary nature of empathy and autonomy in empowering young women to keep themselves safe. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 2, 2020
It’s heartbreakingly good. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineBen FlanaganMar 3, 2020
Driven by the potency of its social intentions, the film is so authentically felt that it becomes hyper-real, a nightmarish disquisition about how entire systems are rigged against women that would feel academic if it didn’t play out against earnest performances of tender teenage emotions. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJan 25, 2020
With stunning performances from two completely genuine young leads, this is a movie people will talk about all year. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jan 26, 2020
Hittman isn’t really a polemicist. She expresses her empathy and political conscience through a refined version of what’s become her signature style, zeroing in on details of place and behavior, both magnified by the reliably involving scenario of two kids from the sticks navigating the hustle, bustle, and bright lights of the city. And moments of startling, unaffected tenderness peak through the grimness of the circumstances. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 7, 2020
Music is where the film’s emotional meaning is unveiled. Read full review
80
EmpireBen TravisMay 7, 2020
It’s not an easy watch, but Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a necessary, unflinching portrait of young women trying to do right by themselves in a world seemingly against them at every turn. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 2, 2020
“Never Rarely” is not strident, it doesn’t preach, it doesn’t harangue. Instead it relies on confident direction, brilliant acting and a deceptively straightforward story to make its point. Really, you probably haven’t seen anything like it. Read full review
80
The GuardianAdrian HortonMar 9, 2020
The film’s spareness has lasting power – as Skylar and Autumn boarded the bus home, I realized I had been clenching my jaw the whole movie. It’s a testament to Hittman’s portrayal of fear and frustration in navigating American reproductive healthcare as a teen. I just wish her characters had more to say about it. Read full review
80
Time OutZachary ShevichJan 31, 2020
The metaphor for the extra baggage these cousins carry should not be lost, but it’s also a constant reminder of their unsettled nature. Never Rarely Sometimes Always creates a deeply empathetic look at their shared suffering. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreJan 26, 2020
Never Rarely Sometimes Always isn’t agitprop for an era of increasingly restricted abortion access, though it’d be entirely justified and effective in being so. It is, simply, a depiction of a reality of our present, and the fact that it often feels like a thriller is a damning reflection of how much peril those restrictions have created, especially for the already vulnerable. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 25, 2020
While this simple story may not seem inherently momentous, it speaks volumes about the ways in which women are marginalised — especially when it comes to making decisions about their own bodies. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 31, 2020
Writer-director Eliza Hittman has made a controlled and reserved film, and she has placed at its center a reserved and controlled protagonist named Autumn, played with restraint by newcomer Sidney Flanagan. Read full review
60
Film ThreatAlan NgJan 3, 2021
In the end, my question is whether Never Rarely Sometimes Always is meant to be just a story or offer something political to say in the great abortion debate. I’m certain the film exists to highlight the stories of young women forced to travel across state lines for abortions. Either way, there’s not enough of either to make it a compelling movie in the end. Read full review
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