Shane Meadows’s most personal film is his best, combining the director’s impeccably observed comedy with a gathering storm cloud of ominous ill will.

| Nov 2, 2022

Simply put, this is one the greatest British films of the 21st century.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 17, 2021

In the third act I perceive a sentimentality and a reiteration that ends up being trivially unsolvable. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 7, 2020

A small masterpiece. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 17, 2019

Meadows captures the violent clash of subcultures in England through the eyes of a lost and lonely young boy.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 6, 2019

Nevertheless a must-see for Smiths' devotees willing to be deprived of just about everything Smiths.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 4, 2018

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

It is the war within him--and by extension, within the minds of many embittered, working class young men left behind in Thatcher's England--that Meadows's film most strikingly portrays.

| Aug 8, 2009

The film leaves you thinking about a skinhead culture of outcasts given to violence, born in a moment of war, when father figures were elsewhere.

| Oct 18, 2008

Steeped in the raw mix of ska and punk sound as expression of the youth alienation and misguided rage of those tumultuous times, an alarming voice of the surging army of jobless youth back then dubbed 'no hopers.'

| Dec 22, 2007

Stephen Graham delivers a bravura performance as the brooding, mesmerizing Combo, clearly channeling Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 18, 2007

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 7, 2007

Riveting.

| Nov 29, 2007

Meadows obviously knows the working class neighborhoods that he depicts. There's a grit and honesty to his film as he chronicles the mundane details of these kids' lives.

Full Review | Nov 15, 2007

How sad and predictable is the fate of those who counsel violence as a means to an end. And yet how poignant it all seems when viewed through Shane Meadows' thoughtful lens.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 9, 2007

An intelligent, spare, mean-streets sort of story, This Is England features superb performances...

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 9, 2007

You wouldn't think a film about a group of British skinheads during the early 1980s could be a sweet, nostalgic coming-of-age period piece, but that's the surprise of the authentic, fresh and utterly relevant This Is England.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 9, 2007

Its tough but moving neo-realist approach make it one of the better British films of recent times.

Full Review | Nov 9, 2007

This Is England grabs you by the scruff of the neck and yanks you into the Thatcher 1980s with brute force.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 27, 2007