McConaughey, Sheridan, and Lofland carry the film and make Mud one of the year’s best films...

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 20, 2024

... a story of childhood adventure steeped in the rural culture of life on the Mississippi and the mythology of Huckleberry Finn, but this boy’s adventure is also tangled in the world of adults and family bonds.

| May 6, 2023

A film that mixes the intimate with the epic, thrilling action with slow-burning drama, Mud is a searing 2012 slice of Southern US-set cinema which rivals the brilliant Beasts of the Southern Wild from the same year.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 1, 2023

The influence of Mark Twain lingers in the warm air of this present-day drama.

| Sep 26, 2022

Mud could have very easily declined into a world-shattering tragedy, but Nichols stays true to Twain’s style in the Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer novels and instills both Ellis and Mud with the hopeful purity of youth.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 6, 2022

It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s a thriller. It’s a skewed romance. It’s a film that dabbles in several areas yet it all comes together in a gripping story full of life and grit.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 24, 2022

The dialogue is notably natural and delivered quite authentically by the entire cast.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 3, 2020

Bathed in Southern Gothic production design.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 17, 2020

Mud is beautiful, emotional and lyrical. This is a strong coming-of-age story ... both simple and dense at the same time, a combination that creates one of this year's best films.

| Jul 3, 2020

Mud is the shining star in Jeff Nichols' triple crown of films.

| Nov 27, 2019

This ain't the "magically tingly" kind of fairy tale. It's the "fundamentally flawed indication of where a culture is at" kind of fairy tale.

| Original Score: F- | Aug 27, 2019

An engaging coming of age story with Matthew McConaughey continuing his string of good work.

| Original Score: B | Apr 10, 2019

Wholeheartedly succeeding where recent comparable American independent efforts have failed, Nichols' triumphant backwater bromance offers everything you could want from a film of its ilk.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2019

The southern fried comforts and sleepy-eyed momentum of Mud instills Nichols's first-rate fable with the hearty flourishes of gothic grandstanding that resonates so eloquently..[a] special occasion where it pays off to roll around in this Mud patch

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 17, 2018

With a lack of sentimentality, the appealingly naturalistic performances of the two boys and a slow-burn build-up to an explosive finale, it's a charming, redolent and unexpected pastoral that both intrigues and moves.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 23, 2018

Mud feels thoroughly, depressingly familiar in nearly every one of its narrative, thematic, and dramatic beats, even if one can't place a precise predecessor.

| Nov 7, 2017

McConaughey gives his best performance since Killer Joe, while Sheridan, whom we first saw in Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life, is faultless as Ellis.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2017

Its beguiling mix of naturalism and fabulism will appeal to adults who'd like to see a version of Beasts Of The Southern Wild with fewer fairy lights.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2017

What a treat for the eyes and the ears.

| Original Score: A | Aug 18, 2017

Mud has a stellar cast. Nichols knows they'll do the heavy lifting for him, and his nuanced direction and thoughtful visuals lets them do exactly that.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 20, 2016