I, Daniel Blake is about the struggles of an ailing common man against the labyrinthine welfare bureaucracy to get that elusive 'employment and support allowance.'

| Jul 24, 2018

Whichever side you come down on, Johns' and Squires' low-key performances are impressive, and the technological/red-tape hurdles their characters face feel stingingly accurate.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 29, 2017

Politically, of course, it cleaves to the left, yet by temperament it shrinks from progress.

| Jun 12, 2017

Writer-director Ken Loach has been making movies about the British working class since the mid-60s, and this masterful dramatic feature proves that even after all these years he can still work himself up into righteous, white-hot rage.

| Jun 8, 2017

Johns makes it all bearable. Inviting, even. His performance has such a gentle humanity, even (especially) in the darkest scenes that you can't turn away.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 8, 2017

For the iconoclastic film director Ken Loach and his longtime screenwriting collaborator Paul Laverty, I, Daniel Blake represents their most accessible film ever.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 1, 2017

Brims with spirit, sympathy and candor as it tackles the catastrophic displacement brought on by economic and technological change.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 1, 2017

It's enough to make you want to scream, except you don't have to scream. Ken Loach does the screaming for you.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 31, 2017

The film is so tightly written, the characters so well developed and the execution so perfect that if Loach retired from filmmaking tomorrow, this heartbreaking working class film would be a fitting coda... to a career that has been firm in its mission.

| May 31, 2017

Utimately this political film's sentimentality and transparency detract from its power.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 4, 2017

A film of empathy, grace and wit that goes a long way to explaining the populist anger so emblematic of these times.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 4, 2017

There's a heightened edge to I, Daniel Blake, an embittered streak of comedy that keeps the otherwise miserable plot from weighing too heavily.

| Feb 9, 2017

In the end, the title, seemingly unremarkable, reveals itself as especially poignant. Daniel is crying out for recognition as an "I" -- even if he can't contribute, even if he needs help for a while.

| Jan 6, 2017

This new Ken Loach landmark sums up everything that has kept his muckraking motor running for decades. An old-school social realist, the 80-year-old filmmaker again speaks up for the exploited lower classes,

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 6, 2017

Loach's film isn't as stridently political as it probably sounds. These are just proud people who want to be treated with respect.

| Original Score: A- | Jan 5, 2017

Loach's low-key naturalism, which barely masks his fury at the injustices perpetrated on screen, is matched by Dave Johns's performance as Daniel.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 30, 2016

I, Daniel Blake is an important story, perfect for today's world, Loach once again proving that, even at 80 years of age, he's not done telling it as it is, and that's a wondrous thing indeed.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 23, 2016

I, Daniel Blake is an extremely Ken Loach-y Ken Loach film, for better and for worse.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 23, 2016

"I, Daniel Blake" is a powerful return to form for Mr. Loach, the much-honored left-wing British filmmaker who is now 80 and is still in full command as a filmmaker and a social critic.

| Dec 22, 2016

[A] combination of traditional movie naturalism and still-seething anger is at the rabble-rousing heart of "I, Daniel Blake," Loach's latest clear-eyed bulletin from the world of the dispossessed.

| Dec 22, 2016