Leave the World Behind Reviews
In these times when people see more differences than similarities, it feels important to remember that even when you probably don’t like most people you meet, we are the only thing we have for each other.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 3, 2024
a devious film in that it’s just barely mysterious and intriguing enough that you want some kind of explanation, no matter how obvious it becomes that the explanation is going to be incredibly stupid.
| May 4, 2024
The most insolent executive-office musing ever committed to film -- a full-out assault on the nation’s people.
| Apr 12, 2024
The tension is breathless and well-constructed, but since they begin with the dial at eleven, there is nowhere to go throughout the film’s exhausting 140 minutes.
| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 15, 2024
The film has more impossible shots than the Harlem Globetrotters.
| Mar 6, 2024
Leave the World Behind is barely a blip. There are only mildly interesting ideas, but they have all been done better previously and likely will be done better in the future. Esmail’s film is all style, no substance, and a waste of talent.
| Original Score: D- | Feb 29, 2024
Director/Writer Esmail has fashioned an end-of-the-world storyline that keeps pounding our fears throughout its 140 minutes.
| Original Score: B+ | Jan 28, 2024
Doesn’t just offer disheartening disaster sequences, it is also a thought-provoking journey into the complexities of our contemporary existence; the type of film we don’t get enough of these days.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2024
This is why I always tell my kids to download sh*t to their devices. I'm not paying for airplane wifi.
| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 25, 2024
Leave the World Behind is thankfully as intriguing as it sounds, with fantastic tension building and strong performances. However, it's failure to stick the landing and over-explaining of the obvious gives it a disappointing conclusion.
| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 8, 2024
A complex apocalyptic thriller that's ominous and pessimistic, but also thought-provoking and entertaining. It’s the type of film that begs for a lengthy discussion afterwards.
| Jan 8, 2024
To say that the film delivers an ever-tightening sense of dread is an understatement. The acting is about as good as what you'd expect from such a high-powered cast, but I was especially taken with Farrah Mackenzie.
| Original Score: B- | Jan 5, 2024
The mystery of what is happening is resolved in dribs and drabs and never completely; the script has an abundance of trickery. In the end, some will wonder if there will be a second chapter; This could pass for a pilot episode.
| Jan 5, 2024
This is an oft-repeated world-is-coming-to-an-end plot that goes around many circles and gets lost in the loop of confusion, leaving you with more questions than answers in the end.
| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 5, 2024
That Leave the World Behind offers so many questions and few answers — at least of the easy variety — means it probably isn’t for everyone, but it should be experienced by many.
| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 30, 2023
Shyamalan meets Black Mirror in this hugely entertaining, visually inventive apocalyptic thriller with a killer ending.
| Dec 30, 2023
The most appealing aspect of Leave the World Behind is watching the fear taking hold of these characters while they desperately try to rationalize and explain everything that’s happening around them.
| Dec 29, 2023
The film is a cautionary tale on the fragility of society, about classism and racism and other mechanisms that can be used to cause friction and disunity. It leaves the viewer to reflect upon an ominous message about where the world might be heading.
| Dec 29, 2023
It doesn't so much as end as just stop.
| Original Score: 2 stars | Dec 29, 2023
... The film boldly sets itself in a post-conspiracy-theories space as its mysterious elite confesses to losing control. [Full review in Spanish]
| Dec 28, 2023