Nebraska is a slow-burning heart-warmer that neatly dodges the cornball bullet of a climactic manly hug.

| Feb 22, 2019

... its beauty lies in its simplicity.

| Original Score: B | Sep 6, 2017

Forever typecast as nutjobs and con artists, Dern's Woody Grant is a little chubby, a little bewildered, and a lot unkempt. He's grizzled, resigned, and wonderful, and so is the film.

| Jun 18, 2016

Nebraska, despite a few pleasures, strikes me as Payne's most cartoonish, one-dimensional work.

| May 22, 2014

There is a sentimental aspect to the concluding stages of the film: it's not as broad or astringent as Payne can be. But there's also something intriguingly dreamlike about its tone.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 20, 2014

In Payne films, as in the films of Jean Renoir, there are no "goodies" or "baddies"; everyone has their reasons, and that makes his work distinctly different from most mainstream American films these days.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 18, 2014

[A]n odyssey into the past, into missed opportunities, and into the complexities of an everyday family of malcontents.

| Feb 6, 2014

[Payne has] made an "American Gothic" for 21st-century, post-recession America. Who needs a pitchfork anyway, when you can have an ice cold bottle of Bud?

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 30, 2013

The deft achievement of this movie is that it has a hardness that doesn't delight in the meanness of mockery as the Coens often do.

| Dec 10, 2013

Nebraska tunes its bittersweet "personal journey" riffs to the plaintive waltz of picked guitars and lyrical fiddles, played out against a backdrop of fading midwest towns and long, lonesome interstates.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 8, 2013

Nebraska is an absolutely enchanting film, so funny, so touching, ringing true - for me right up there with the year's best.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2013

Though taken from an original script by Bob Nelson, the result could hardly be more characteristic of Payne if his name were watermarked into every frame.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2013

In iconic black and white, the brilliant, empathetic Payne ("Sideways") delivers another fully realized road movie - and Oscar contender.

| Dec 5, 2013

A bittersweet road movie about the joy and sadness of ageing directed by the great Alexander Payne.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2013

Think of David Lynch's The Straight Story and subtract colour and élan.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 5, 2013

An intimate road movie about one family that also lingers on the landscapes and fabric of an old-time, dying vision of the American Midwest

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 2, 2013

A charming road movie that develops into a full-blown study of life and roots, offering a beautiful insight into the way families migrate and change.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 1, 2013

Forte is a surprising fount of melancholy and frustrated ambition, while Dern takes a tough part -- a man of few words who might not be all there -- and masterfully controls his body to convey Woody's inner depths.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 27, 2013

"Nebraska," it turns out, isn't as bleak as it first looks.

| Original Score: B | Nov 27, 2013

A desolate comedy-drama about fathers, sons, life's highways and missed off-ramps.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 26, 2013