The whole affair has a Caddyshack-esque "snobs against the slobs" vibe to it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 18, 2021

It's a fable of empowerment, of beating the odds, but Osmond's deft hand ensures it never feels manipulative.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2021

Using video footage, old photos, reenactments and interviews with the spunky local inhabitants, Osmond reconstructs a story of a willful, competitive animal who could and did, and the town that loved her for it.

| Jun 18, 2020

Director Louise Osmond deftly employs a real-life cast of mostly working-class Welsh men and women describing how a most unlikely horse entered and upended their lives for a spell in a marvelous Cinderella story.

| Jun 10, 2020

The picture is as textbook an underdog story as anything to have come out of Hollywood, and yet it's the sincerity of the principles who tell the story that make it so uniquely compelling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 4, 2019

Racing fans will find "Dark Horse" a delight, but the human story is equally as enticing for non-sports fans.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 15, 2019

Enticing nags-to-riches story.

| Original Score: B- | May 7, 2018

Ormond's satisfying documentary Dark Horse is just as much a crowd-pleaser as Dream Alliance was, when he beat the odds at the Welsh Grand National.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 2, 2017

It's a story that just isn't rousing enough to justify the length of a feature film. Though that may depend on how much of a horse lover you are.

| Sep 26, 2017

Who says fairy tales are just for princesses? If you want magic, see Dark Horse.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 11, 2017

Without my giving anything away, I can assert the film becomes deeply moving and inspirational by its stirring conclusion.

| Aug 28, 2017

Directed by Louise Osmond, the film follows the extraordinary and moving experience of a syndicate in an extremely poor Welsh mining village who came to own a thoroughbred that defied their expectations.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2017

The funny, sad Dark Horse adds a creepy loser in love to the director's catalog of misanthropes.

| Aug 16, 2017

Dark Horse is every bit as irresistible as Billy Elliott or The Full Monty. Like them, it's about working-class heroes who do what nobody else thought they could.

| Jun 20, 2017

I got a little choked up watching these old miners, barmaids, former pit workers and retirees chasing a very odd dream they didn't even know they had then grabbing on to it like a lifeline when the dream starts to feel real.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 2, 2017

It's a true winner and a genuine crowdpleaser, a human story told well through one incredible animal.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 2, 2017

Saying more would ruin the story, which has more hurdles and switchbacks than a steeplechase.

| Jul 13, 2016

Dark Horse has humor, a look at racing society from the ground up, life in a small Welsh town, and the love of animals.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 8, 2016

Great Feel-Good Story

| Original Score: 5 | Jul 2, 2016

Sweet without being cloying, crowd-pleasing without being obviously manipulative, this is how this kind of tale ought to be told. See it now before Hollywood decides to remake it.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 21, 2016