Realism and restraint make for a deeply stirring watch, courtesy of the Dardenne brothers’ compassionate filmmaking.

| Original Score: 85/100 | Aug 12, 2023

The Dardenne [brothers] ratify with Le Gamin au Vélo the extraordinary depth of their beautiful, rigorous, implacable cinema... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 4, 2022

...a stirring, poignant story

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2022

The Dardennes have always been true humanists, finding the good in criminals and fuck-ups and outsiders. The Kid with a Bike is undoubtedly a part of that tradition.

| Mar 16, 2021

Just when I thought I comfortably settled in the world of the likes of Godard, Denis and Weerasethakul, the Belgian neo-realists the Dardenne Bros' The Kid with a Bike floors me and humbles me to appreciate the power of simple narrative once more.

| Feb 28, 2021

For a film that is as heartbreaking and real as The Kid with a Bike, the Dardennes do not strike one false note.

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

Result(s) in a huge emotional payoff that resonates more deeply than its sparse elements might suggest.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 6, 2019

A whir of energy that documents, as its elemental Dardennian title would suggest, the story of a boy using a bike as a conduit to find some parental care and affection.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 16, 2019

Doret's superb turn as Cyril may be the closest European cinema has come to finding an Antoine Doinel (the iconic star of François Truffaut's 1959 classic The 400 Blows) for the 21st century.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 4, 2019

As Samantha says in her first words to Cyril, "You can hold onto me, but not so tight." Of course, it's when he loosens his grip that "The Kid With a Bike" tightens the one on its audience.

| Dec 21, 2018

A contemporary fable [that] traffics in the childhood anxieties of bedtime stories...in a naturalistic setting that makes the viewer anxious.

| Aug 30, 2018

Slight, yes, but that's what makes The Kid with a Bike such a tender, heart-warming and true-to-life depiction of the innocence of childhood and one child's longing for acceptance and love.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2018

Life is not easy, and we must navigate the eventual potholes regardless of how many or how soon they appear in our path.

| Original Score: A | Aug 11, 2018

The results are emotionally ingratiating and quite touching.

| Oct 4, 2017

This amazing film of loss and discovery will change you - a rare occurrence these days.

| Sep 18, 2017

The result is neither dull nor dutiful, nor conventionally guilt-inducing for a comfortable art house audience -- it is quite the opposite. [The Dardennes'] films are tense high-wire acts of dramatic irony.

| Mar 28, 2017

Seriously, enough is enough.

| Oct 7, 2015

The movie is so quiet that everything starts to feel heightened; the smallest motions carry great weight, and something as minor as a slammed door causes you to gasp.

| Original Score: A- | Jul 2, 2013

A complicated unflinching look at a boy struggling to thrive in a harsh world.

| Original Score: 3.0/5 | Jun 30, 2013

The directing by the Dardenne brothers reflects their previous work: it wants to be unnoticed either for virtuosity or clumsiness, yet only virtuosos can attain this ideal.

| Jun 18, 2013