The Rider: reviews

What the critics say average 8.5 from 4

• 9.1 IndiewireKate Erbland "Utilizing a cast of non-actors ? most of whom are tasked with playing versions of themselves, in a story pulled from their lives ? Zhao?s film derives its power from the truth that both drives it and inspires it, and the final result is a wholly unique slice-of-life drama". Read
• 9.0 The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthy "'The Rider' is a rare gem, a small, acutely observed portrait of a few lives on what used to be the frontier but is now a desolate backwater, the windswept badlands around Pine Ridge, South Dakota". Read
• 8.0 The GuardianPeter Bradshaw "This is a movie using non-professionals playing versions of themselves, and under Zhao?s patient, unintrusive directorial eye they appear to be inhabiting a kind of heightened documentary". Read
• 8.0 VarietyGuy Lodge "Even as harder realities hit home, The Rider is in complete sympathy with its protagonist?s wild, wistful yen". Read