Metacritic Movie Ratings
Take Shelter Reviews

A sample of reviews from critics across the country.

• 100

  out of 100

  Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert

  The film concludes not with a "surprise ending" but with a series of shots that brilliantly summarize all that has gone before. This is masterful filmmaking.

  Read full review

• 91

  out of 100

  Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum

  Writer-director Jeff Nichols builds his elegantly shot, weather-sensitive horror story in waves of tension that crest as if pulled by tempests.

  Read full review

• 90

  out of 100

  Village VoiceMelissa Anderson

  Despite a few missteps, Take Shelter powerfully lays bare our national anxiety disorder - a pervasive dread that Curtis can define only as "something that's not right."

  Read full review

• 90

  out of 100

  The Hollywood Reporter

  A riveting genre blend of thriller, domestic drama and supernatural horror propelled by a brilliant lead performance.

  Read full review

• 90

  out of 100

  Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern

  A dazzling piece of filmmaking, and much of the dazzle - as well as the anguished darkness - comes from Adam Stone's cinematography, which expresses the swirling state of Curtis's mind with richly varied flavors of light.

  Read full review

• 80

  out of 100

  Los Angeles Times

  From the first moments of the eerie storm that opens the story, dread is the prevailing mood of this pre-apocalyptic drama - a film very much about this moment in time.

  Read full review

• 80

  out of 100

  VarietyJustin Chang

  This deliberately paced psychological drama builds an ever-tightening knot of tension around an excellent Michael Shannon, here playing a family man slowly driven mad by apocalyptic visions that could be paranoid, prophetic or both.

  Read full review

• 80

  out of 100

  The New York TimesA.O. Scott

  It is a quiet, relentless exploration of the latent (and not so latent) terrors that bedevil contemporary American life, a horror movie that will trouble your sleep not with visions of monsters but with a more familiar dread.

  Read full review

See all Take Shelter movie reviews at Metacritic.com