Potato Dreams of America is a sweet and endearing story about a boy and his mother that go through a total transformation to get the life they always wanted.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 14, 2023

Hurley’s script is quite funny, especially in the first act, where Potato and Lena do their best to tolerate those who are intolerable among them.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 10, 2022

Hurley harvests his storytelling skills, resulting in a bumper crop of emotions, with laughter and tears in equal measure.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 21, 2022

Potato Dreams of America efficiently offsets its eccentricity with earnest emotion, sharing a queer coming-of-age story that is simultaneously silly and stirring.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

an unconventional, wildly entertaining film...coming-of-age story is complicated by the shift in language and culture involved in the protagonist’s immigration to America from Russia. And he’s gay.

| Aug 23, 2022

A jewel of modern independent cinema, and a funny if very tender movie about finding comfort in the home and in oneself.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 18, 2022

Potato Dreams of America is a charming and deeply personal story about finding the freedom to be yourself and never hold back while showcasing the overall struggle of being an immigrant in the United States.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 15, 2022

Potato Dreams of America moves comfortably between comedy and drama. As an audience it isn’t hard to follow the pace, which does good for the delivery of the film’s message. 

| Original Score: 3.3/5 | Aug 14, 2022

Potato Dreams of America with its dark humor seems to highlight what appears to have been the struggles of the writer in his youth finding himself and accepting his sexuality in a place that makes it even more challenging.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Aug 5, 2022

'Potato Dreams of America' is a warm and appealing. ... It’s not only a celebration of the immigrant experience, but a loving portrait of acceptance and, ultimately, being true to yourself and having the courage to reveal who you really are.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 3, 2022

Oddly put together and tonally awkward in its blend of satire and coming-of-age drama but it does have an appealing surrealist quality to it that makes a virtue out of its low budget. (Dark Star PIctures blu-ray review).

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 24, 2022

A heartfelt and surprising coming-of-age story.

| Jun 30, 2022

Even if Hurley’s ambitious conceits bring a kind of aspirational magic realism to his film, they never become pretentious, nor do they derail for an instant the movie’s sense of fun.

| May 19, 2022

After getting great reviews after its world premiere at SXSW in 2021, Potato Dreams of America continues to make people laugh.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2022

Two very strong performances anchor “Potato Dreams of America,” Seattle-based filmmaker Wes Hurley’s thought-provoking dramatization of his childhood in his native Russia and, later, as a teen in Seattle.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 9, 2022

Although uneven, it’s exciting to see a fresh, new voice like writer/director Wes Hurley.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 22, 2022

There is something so remarkably endearing in the film, the performances, and its overall execution that simply screams an infectious heartfelt optimism.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 17, 2022

Hurleys wonderful and very queer film is full of wit, despair, and heart, and that is what makes it so winning.

| Feb 12, 2022

It’s entertaining, and even sexy at times in ways that are distinctive and inventive.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 9, 2022

The film, sweet as it is, fails to strike a manageable or engaging enough tone as it treads some overly familiar territory...

| Jan 13, 2022