Basholli understands that healing is possible, even if closure isn’t.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 19, 2022

The feel-good finale is well-earned and the glimpse of the women on whom the film is based is, for once, not merely a watermark of authenticity, but a genuinely moving vista.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 18, 2022

Hive cooks up a beautifully delicate rally for independence and justice, brought out through precise processes of the communal culinary experience.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 18, 2022

This is a richly intelligent drama, in which every word and every shot counts.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 16, 2022

Hive is never quite a feelgood film, but there is a tangible sense of joy as Fahrije begins to lead her fellow widows to a place of healing and the promise of better times ahead.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 11, 2022

A succinct drama with limited scope, but respectful of its subjects’ intimacies.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2022

Hive provides painful insights into the aftermath of the war and its effects on the women who, thanks to the rigid approach of the surviving men, were often denied even a reasonable chance of a future.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 5, 2022

Hive does it better than any newspaper could, getting into the intimate details of grief and betrayal and ingrained cultural prejudice, dragging them slowly into the light. And it does it by telling a true story that’s compelling, powerful, inspiring.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 23, 2022

Overall, Hive is a largely understated film, one in which there are no major sweeping moments of uplifting discovery, an exceptionally moving glimpse into the hopeful perseverance of a group of women...

| Feb 23, 2022

Gashi's sturdy, no-nonsense portrayal of a sturdy, no-nonsense woman doesn't traffic in cheap inspiration and neither does Basholli's film.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 9, 2021

Yllka Gashi's portrayal of Hoti is excellently controlled...

| Dec 8, 2021

It's based on a true story of feminist defiance and healing that counts as one of the more affecting tales of recovery to come from the conflict...

| Nov 11, 2021

Basholli's film is a spare and unsparing portrait of a survivor who refuses to bend to ancient traditions. As storytelling, this is as good as it gets.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 11, 2021

Though it doesn't break new ground, Hive still reminds one how urgently significant it is to honor the unique fighting spirit of women.

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

Somewhere behind "Hive," I think, you can hear the far-off cry of Euripides' "The Trojan Women"...

| Nov 5, 2021

"Hive" seizes and holds your interest simply through the drama created by sympathetic characters trying to surmount awful, unfair hurdles.

| Nov 4, 2021

What Basholli has made is a thoughtful, humanistic exploration of the fortitude needed to summon hope in a time and place resigned to hopelessness.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 3, 2021

A layer of ambivalence facilitates our identification with Fahrije but also makes her a distinct character and not just an archetype.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 1, 2021

Very simple grassroots-looking filmmaking makes what's on view all the more realistic. A fact-based allegory guaranteed to inspire.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 10, 2021

The film is stirring, infuriating, and ultimately hopeful.

| Feb 10, 2021