What distinguishes "Ray & Liz" is its ability to find strange tonal nuances within that terrible sadness; bleak as it is, it's remarkably devoid of bitterness or rancor, and even its most despairing passages are flecked with humor and hope.

| Jul 20, 2019

Billingham's famous photos are tough-minded and emotionally painful, silent by virtue of their medium. And his live-action version offers a similar experience.

| Jul 19, 2019

Gorgeously photographed on 16mm, Richard Billingham's Ray and Liz counters the grubby, quasi-authentic tenets of so-called British miserablism with humor, beauty, and a sensuality that in no way dilutes the hardships and neglect at its core

| Jul 15, 2019

We often say art "cuts close to the bone," but in its depiction of clinking liquor bottles and drawers of unopened rent notices soaked in dog urine, Ray & Liz slices clean through that bone.

| Jul 12, 2019

Performed with absolute commitment by its cast (Justin Salinger and Ella Smith play the younger versions of the title characters), "Ray & Liz" is a quietly harrowing movie.

| Jul 11, 2019

With its very tamped-down emotion, Bellingham's decision not to attempt insight or empathy is the most telling display of the consequences of his story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 10, 2019

[A] film in which the memories you can't shake and the memories you won't let go become indistinguishable from the ones you never had.

| Original Score: B | Jul 9, 2019

For fans of slow cinema, still photography, and social realism, Ray & Liz is as depressing as it is ultimately rewarding.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 14, 2019

A sometimes gruelling, uncompromising and contrarily beautiful film, it's an intriguing headspace for both film-maker and viewer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 20, 2019

The lives we see are eked out on the breadline with an air of desperation and feverishness. Yet Daniel Landin's cinematography captures them affectionately.

| Mar 15, 2019

It's a hard watch, marked by casual racism and shocking parenting and hygiene. Yet the authenticity is bracing, the framing and lighting as striking as you'd expect from a photographer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 13, 2019

Humor and harshness is very much intertwined... it's evoked with remarkable poetry.

| Mar 11, 2019

It's gruelling at times, but the film is extraordinary and unflinching. And remarkably, it's made with as much love as anger.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 10, 2019

All hail an instant classic.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 10, 2019

The film acts like a reworking of the static images of Billingham's photography book Ray's a Laugh - but this is a deeper and more enriching exploration of the people, their circumstance and Billingham's own relationship to both.

| Mar 8, 2019

Creating an astute sense of atmosphere and detail that come together to make meaning, Richard Billingham marks himself out as a filmmaker to watch.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 8, 2019

[A] virtuoso debut feature.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 7, 2019

A grubby and unique British classic in the making.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 7, 2019

The film hops about in time and mood with the agility of an actual fly on an actual wall.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 6, 2019

The adult inhabitants of this human zoo may be repellent but the searing authenticity of Billingham's nightmarish vision ensures we can't look away.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 6, 2019