Rightly considered one of Canada’s most important films, writer-director Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, now issued in restored form, stands the test of time.

| Original Score: A | Nov 5, 2024

[Recreates] the terrible iciness of grief in a way that is difficult to shake off.

| Dec 30, 2023

The film works very well on its own merits combining stunning cinematography, brilliant performances and a stirring screenplay.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 23, 2022

Atom Egoyan doesn't handle nuance well, coating the film in a blanket of indistinct subtlety. Properly dissected, one can see the sublime film that could've been.

| Jul 1, 2020

There's a mesmerizing clarity to The Sweet Hereafter': you're moved by it, but you never feel the filmmaker is milking your emotions.

| Mar 5, 2018

That's the true power of Egoyan's film - how in shuffling the chronological deck, we see what once was in this town, both in its light and its darkness, and how none of it will ever be the same, no matter what Mitchell Stevens says.

| Dec 15, 2017

Egoyan's most successful film to date.

| Mar 17, 2017

A film that touches on the essence of love by throwing us into the abyss of loss, The Sweet Hereafter marks the apex of the English-Canadian film tradition as it navigates the empty space left in the wake of tragedy with a gentle, but unsentimental eye.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 16, 2015

In its unsparing depiction of the loneliness and despair that afflicts the tragedy-wracked town of Sam Dent, The Sweet Hereafter is one of the coldest movies ever made.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 3, 2012

| Original Score: A | Sep 7, 2011

Cuts to the bone and stays there long after its end credits have finished rolling.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 8, 2009

...intelligent, stately paced film

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jan 29, 2005

Molds the past, present, and future into a tapestry of the cyclical nature of human suffering.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 24, 2004

Based on Russell Banks' tragic novel about a town grieving for 14 children killed in a bus crash, easily makes my list of top 1997 films.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 1, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 20, 2003

A delicate and touching story.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 6, 2002

Visits the impossible contradictions of bereavement with clear-eyed compassion.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 15, 2002

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 21, 2002

This isn't a "flick" or a "movie". This is a film.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 4, 2002

A stirring portrait of a community struggling to heal in the wake of a crisis.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 5, 2002