Take Shelter
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: September 30, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 2, 2017
Shannon is perfectly cast, a creepily magnetic actor with an otherworldly calm, tight jaw and piercing, set-apart eyes. The performance and movie stick with you, with masterful construction and muted psychological horror. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 20, 2011
Take Shelter, which, it should be said, boasts haunting but seamless visual effects, is a movie for this moment in time, this moment in our lives. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 13, 2011
The story of a man afflicted with fearful visions, Take Shelter is a film that's hitting the right apocalyptic trumpet call at the right time. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 13, 2011
Taut, unsettling, haunting and powerful. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertOct 5, 2011
The film concludes not with a "surprise ending" but with a series of shots that brilliantly summarize all that has gone before. This is masterful filmmaking. Read full review
100
IndieWireEric KohnSep 29, 2011
As with "Shotgun Stories," Nichols assembles a tense portrait of blue-collar life, while deepening his thematic interests and working on a bigger scale. Burrowing into the subconscious of a damaged man, he delivers a modern American epic with extraordinary restraint. Read full review
100
Time OutKeith UhlichSep 27, 2011
Nichols has said that the idea for the film emerged from a free-floating anxiety that he sensed in the world at large, the feeling that everything we treasure in life could be lost in an instant. That sensation permeates this strikingly original movie - especially its enigmatic mind-fuck of a finale, which will haunt you for several lifetimes. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 30, 2011
Begins frighteningly and gets progressively more so. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumSep 28, 2011
Writer-director Jeff Nichols builds his elegantly shot, weather-sensitive horror story in waves of tension that crest as if pulled by tempests. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 27, 2011
Not just a fascinating character study but a kind of horror movie as well. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesOct 6, 2011
Writer-director Jeff Nichols maintains a cagey balancing act for much of the movie, refusing to specify whether his protagonist is a prophet or a madman, yet in the end this doesn't really matter: the storm inside him is plenty real. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 29, 2011
A terrifically crafted little movie that bounces off current events and the nation's downbeat mood ingeniously, and that it variously suggests comparisons with the early work of Terrence Malick, Stanley Kubrick and the Coen brothers. Yeah, I think it's that good, but please note that I also said "little." Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 29, 2011
A dazzling piece of filmmaking, and much of the dazzle - as well as the anguished darkness - comes from Adam Stone's cinematography, which expresses the swirling state of Curtis's mind with richly varied flavors of light. Read full review
90
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonSep 27, 2011
Despite a few missteps, Take Shelter powerfully lays bare our national anxiety disorder - a pervasive dread that Curtis can define only as "something that's not right." Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 26, 2011
Nichols has a genius for making landscapes and everyday objects resonate like crazy, for nailing the texture of dread. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 25, 2011
A riveting genre blend of thriller, domestic drama and supernatural horror propelled by a brilliant lead performance. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 28, 2011
Shannon's powerfully imploded performance ignites one of the best films of the year. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 20, 2011
Take Shelter plays Curtis's unraveling at daring length. The film will be too slow and dark for some, and it's definitely overlong. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 6, 2011
Here's what I most appreciate about Shannon's work with the writer-director Jeff Nichols: the subtlety. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel MurraySep 28, 2011
Writer-director Jeff Nichols re-teams with his "Shotgun Stories" star Michael Shannon for his second feature, Take Shelter, which has a similar setting, but a different mood. Nichols is still concerned with family legacies, and the ways people in smaller communities relate to each other, but Take Shelter is slower and smoother, deliberately developing a mood of creeping dread. Read full review
80
EmpireAngie ErrigoNov 21, 2011
Terrific. Michael Shannon delivers a fractured everyman who'll stay with you long after the final frame. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanSep 30, 2011
Nichols approaches his subject with thoughtful empathy, and while his themes are enormous - he's addressing no less than the state of our nation - he wisely underplays even the most important moments. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenSep 29, 2011
From the first moments of the eerie storm that opens the story, dread is the prevailing mood of this pre-apocalyptic drama - a film very much about this moment in time. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 29, 2011
It is a quiet, relentless exploration of the latent (and not so latent) terrors that bedevil contemporary American life, a horror movie that will trouble your sleep not with visions of monsters but with a more familiar dread. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin ChangSep 25, 2011
This deliberately paced psychological drama builds an ever-tightening knot of tension around an excellent Michael Shannon, here playing a family man slowly driven mad by apocalyptic visions that could be paranoid, prophetic or both. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 27, 2011
Take Shelter is a deeply unsettling movie. Writer/director Jeff Nichols (an Austin resident and director of the award-winning 2007 feature "Shotgun Stories") doles out information as strategically as a government official. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 26, 2011
Take Shelter is paced slowly and deliberately, which is necessary to make believable whatever is tormenting Curtis. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 29, 2011
Nichols throws curveballs, but his film is unique and unforgettable. Read full review
75
MovielineStephanie ZacharekSep 29, 2011
The economics of star casting aside, what would Take Shelter have been like with James McAvoy or Mark Wahlberg or Jake Gyllenhaal at its center? Read full review
75
Slant MagazineBill WeberSep 25, 2011
It's not easy to give a character study concerning mental illness the aspect of a psychological thriller without some notes of exploitation or trivialization creeping in, and Take Shelter makes a few missteps. Read full review
70
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 6, 2011
All in all, Nichols ends up with a richly drawn, and at times disturbing, portrait of one man's descent into madness. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazinePam GradySep 26, 2011
Shannon makes the man's dilemma plain and moving, and that gives Take Shelter a resonance that last long after the final fade out. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickSep 30, 2011
It would be possible to appreciate Shannon's fabulous work in Take Shelter far better if the filmmaker lost a quarter of the two-hour running time -- there are many overlong scenes that make this a needlessly tough sit. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 6, 2011
Take Shelter has a problem, the simplest of all problems but no less serious for its being simple. It's a film without suspense and with a slow-moving story that unfolds without surprise or embellishment. Read full review
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