70
Metascore
27 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The GuardianXan BrooksThe GuardianXan BrooksIt’s pitiless and pitch-perfect, an existential tour-de-force with shades of Camus’s The Outsider.
- 90SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSlashfilmChris EvangelistaThe genius of Sundown is how little it tells us while keeping us glued to what we're seeing.
- 80VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeYes, Sundown is a mystery, but it’s also a Rorschach test. No two people will see the film the same way.
- 80Screen DailyLee MarshallScreen DailyLee MarshallThere are moments when, like the gaudy lights of Acapulco, Sundown flickers into something rather special when seen from the right angle, in the right mood: a film about a goodbye to life which is also a film about a kind of afterlife.
- 80Film ThreatAlan NgFilm ThreatAlan NgTim Roth is great as Neil.
- 75IndieWireNicholas BarberIndieWireNicholas BarberRoth’s expressions range from slightly dazed to slightly drunk, and so, as the days drift by, Sundown becomes a liberating blend of mystery and existential deadpan comedy.
- 75The PlaylistCarlos AguilarThe PlaylistCarlos AguilarSundown doesn’t subvert what we’ve come to expect from Franco’s work, but it is still a distinctively cerebral rumination.
- 75TheWrapJason SolomonsTheWrapJason SolomonsIts intensity burns like the sun which makes Neil’s skin blister, peeling off a layer we hope might reveal more. Franco is scratching away at the surface, too, making the sort of movie you come away from with questions, wondering if you’d blinked and missed something.
- 67The Film StageJared MobarakThe Film StageJared MobarakThe result is an introspective character study caught against a gorgeous yet volatile backdrop. While I personally believe the payoff is worth the journey, however, I wouldn’t begrudge others for feeling as though they’ve been jerked around.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAs a character study of a man with good reason to wean himself off the very basic human instinct of hope and teach himself, even at some personal cost, to care for no one and nothing, Sundown gains texture from its stark setting in a seaside playground stained with blood. But of all the director’s films to date, this might be the most airless.