Exquisitely elusive, a love dream that slips through your fingers as you reach for it, made with ingenuity and stunning clarity of vision.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Sep 6, 2022

I heartedly recommend The Wanting Mare to film enthusiasts looking for a decidedly unique film experience.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 18, 2022

With a DIY-attitude in tow with its small cast and crew, Bateman paints an intimate portrait of life tethered to a single location and the constant desire to walk away from it all

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2022

A dreamy, dazzling fantasy debut.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2022

Though audiences watching the film's première on small screens may miss out on the full effect, there's a lot to appreciate here - and a promise to explore Anmaere further if it's well enough received.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 7, 2022

a tricky, difficult film, but those seeking to have their minds blown wont be disappointed if they pay close attention

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 10, 2022

iThe Wanting Mare/i is a bold and genre-defining feature debut from writer-director Nicholas Ashe Bateman.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 8, 2022

It fails to grasp that, even in a world empty of hope, the interior life of its characters is still more interesting than visually impressive rubble and ruins.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 31, 2022

There are times when The Wanting Mare is less feature film, more feature-length perfume ad, with all the style and narrative/anti-narrative features of that most baffling of genres.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 26, 2022

For its high-concept presentation and heady ruminations, The Wanting Mare is not a very demanding picture but more of an invitation to a unique passion.

| Jun 12, 2021

It's a bold debut for Bateman, who proves to be not only a gifted technician within this DIY sensibility ... but also the possessor of a rare sensitivity.

| Jun 6, 2021

A little humor might have helped; a darting spot of personality. But it's an art object, and the people in it are not characters so much as concepts.

| Original Score: C | Feb 25, 2021

Bateman's worldbuilding introduces stranger elements that are always counterbalanced by more grounded emotional developments, keeping the audience engaged as hard as the esoteric mythology pushes them away.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 18, 2021

This kind of hushed, low-key story certainly wouldn't be the most obvious place to start an epic, but it's a captivating chunk of mood and personality begging for future chapters. Here's hoping Bateman finds a way to tell them.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 10, 2021

The most impressive bit of filmmaking I've seen in 2020. It's probably a bit too slow, a bit too withholding to be a crowd-pleaser, but there's also zero indication here that Bateman has any interest in making crowd-pleasers.

| Feb 9, 2021

Ashe Bateman clearly has a vision, but the execution doesn't convey what that is or leave a lasting impression needed to jump-start this world. The performances from top to bottom are cold and calculated as if we purposefully aren't supposed to be let in.

| Feb 9, 2021

The Wanting Mare is an ambitious film that's worth watching for its creativity alone.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 8, 2021

Filled with angst-ridden brooding and introspective malaise, the downbeat and deliberately paced film maintains a frustrating emotional distance.

| Feb 7, 2021

In this garish and corporatized age of IP, it seems the auteur is alive and, even if he's occasionally dragged down by the weight of his own ambitions, doing pretty well.

| Feb 6, 2021

As a testament to the limitlessness of low-budget filmmaking, Bateman's film functions perfectly; as a self-standing piece, less so.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 6, 2021