Mountains May Depart tells a sweeping story of history and change, with pronounced feelings and big emotional scenes. And while its dramatics present an unexpected deviation in Jia’s filmography, they're also part of a mounting evolution. 

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 2, 2025

Festival audiences ate it up, of course, but is it actually any good?

| Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 7, 2024

Mountains May Depart is a steadily deflating mess, and (as widely noted) Jia does himself no favors by filming the last third in English. But I found it moving precisely because watching it reminded me that I’ve been watching his work for over a decade.

| Jan 18, 2023

Jia foresees this rootlessness happening for the next generation of Chinese. It's like predisposed collective melancholy that will hit China like tidal waves in the near future. Poignant and sad, Mountains is another great film from the modern master.

| Feb 14, 2021

Unhappily, Mountains May Depart is not a strong work, aside from the glimpses of the loathsome, gun-toting entrepreneur and the struggling coal miner. The final section in Australia is unconvincing from almost every point of view.

| Feb 12, 2021

Jia Zhangke directs a drama about alienation from culture and personal identity in the midst of China's westernization

| Apr 13, 2020

With two very simple but quite beautiful sequences, Zhang-ke reflects on the ephemeral nature of the human questions. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 23, 2019

Captures a sense of melancholy about a nation for whom rapid change has created a loss of identity.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 4, 2019

The often maligned final act, where Jia directs for the first time in English (prepare for wooden acting and bad dialogue), certainly has its faults, but Jia's power at filtering such a complex issue through a moving personal story triumphs in the end.

| May 31, 2019

Finding powerful drama in simple human relationships, Zhangke has produced a touching tale of China yesterday, today and tomorrow.

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

An alternately rapturous and ponderous story of Chinese tradition resisting the eraser of progress.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 12, 2019

The movie would actually be much improved with some very heavy, very skilled editing.

| Original Score: D | Feb 5, 2019

The film is at its best when depicting the sheer estrangement between generations within the modern Chinese family.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 2, 2019

Despite the film's focus on yearning and separation, it expresses a belief that all aspects of Chinese life can be aligned yet again, like a perfect dance routine choreographed to the right song.

| Nov 3, 2018

A tragically effective portrait of what's happening to a country and a huge achievement.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2018

"Mountains May Depart" is definitely one of [director Jia Zhang-ke's] minor films, although even they are more successful than most directors' best work.

| Feb 15, 2018

Jia and Yu have, unsurprisingly, made a movie of taciturn eloquence, always sure-footed in negotiating its discursive narrative construction, even as it sometimes wobbles at the level of performance.

| Jan 3, 2018

Mountains May Depart is an affecting and ambitious tale of social upheaval in modern day China.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 27, 2017

Jia remains a major filmmaker, and this film is never less than bold and ambitious.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 22, 2017

This is an extraordinarily beautiful film with lush, occasionally radical cinematography from Nelson Lik-wai Yu, profound things to say about the immigrant experience and a commanding performance from Zhao Tao.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 18, 2017