The build-up to this climax is slow but is masterfully done without being too sentimental, and Granik seems to understand how to deliver an emotional moment without being manipulative.

| Oct 11, 2024

Foster and McKenzie not only give great individual performances, but their chemistry together is stunning and it made for an emotional experience that few movies matched in 2018.

| Aug 7, 2024

The beauty of it all is while the characters find any means necessary to erase their existence from the world, they will surely find a way to creep into and leave a trace in your heart.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 11, 2024

Both performances are superbly acted by Foster and McKenzie, with McKenzie being the shining star. This is expected in Granik’s films now...

| Original Score: A | Apr 3, 2024

The writing and direction by Debra Granik is sharp and sure. This has the lean, spare look of a low-budget independent film, but it is emotionally rich and powerful.

| Original Score: B | Mar 21, 2023

“Leave No Trace” struck a chord with me early, and I could feel its emotional tug all the way till the end. It’s not a movie deeply concerned with plot. Instead it is all about character.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 23, 2022

Ben Foster gives the performance of his career – it’s a knockout. Leave No Trace doesn’t have a false note in it.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Granik brilliantly delivers the viewer into the characters' spatially and socially secluded world, making otherwise normal, crowded living environments seem oppressive and even dangerous by comparison.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 11, 2022

a truly superb drama that offers no answers and just takes viewers along for the ride.

| Jan 11, 2022

Writer-director Debra Granik's take on PTSD in military veterans is of course compassionate but perhaps slightly less tolerant of the isolation that her male protagonist...

| Nov 23, 2021

Debra Granik's Leave No Trace is a gripping drama...

| Nov 23, 2021

Despite the heartbreaking stories she tells, she gives them (particularly the young women in her films) a flicker of hope in the darkness.

| Nov 23, 2021

[It] concerns itself with individuals attempting to exist outside societal norms and, in doing so, proves to be a moving study of love, loss and what it means to truly belong.

| Nov 23, 2021

Debra Granik's Leave No Trace is a gem of a film.

| Nov 23, 2021

Where their story goes from here isn't always easy to watch, but thanks to McKenzie and Foster's fully committed performances and Granik's nuanced direction, it's powerful and compelling.

| Nov 23, 2021

Leave No Trace is a slow burn, and carefully constructed; the performances are measured and calm. There's no need to overplay the drama - the circumstances presented here are serious enough as they are.

| Sep 9, 2021

...Foster's most subtle performance and an exciting debut from both Debra and McKenzie who I can't wait to see more out of.

| Original Score: 82/100 | Aug 22, 2021

I loved Director Debra Granick's feature Leave No Trace, which captures a pulled-from-life sense of surviving off the grid in Pacific Northwest forests.

| Jul 22, 2021

While the film alludes to larger societal problems such as America's treatment of veterans, and inflexible, societal views about what it means to be a caregiver, the primary narrative focus is on an intimate relationship between two people...

| Apr 16, 2021

This is director Debra Granik's first fiction feature since ... Winter's Bone, and it's been worth the wait.

| Feb 18, 2021