Enter a Rotten Tomatoes movie slug to inspect the stored movie, batches, snapshots, and reviews.
Movie ID: 770
RT slug: drive_my_car
RT URL: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/drive_my_car
Release year: 2021
Runtime: 179 mins
Wide release date: —
Limited release date: 2021-11-24
Festival premiere date: —
Streaming release date: 2022-03-02
Tomatometer final: 97%
Audience score final: —
Genres: Drama
Directors: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Writers: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe
Producers: Jin Suzuki, Keiji Okumura, Misaki Kawamura, Osamu Kubota, Sachio Matsushita, Teruhisa Yamamoto, Tsuyoshi Goro, Yoshito Nakabe
MPAA rating: —
Executive Producers: —
Created: 2026-06-16 21:11:00
Updated: 2026-06-16 21:11:00
Two years after his wife's unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production's premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koji Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke's late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins -- with the help of his driver -- to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. Adapted from Haruki Murakami's short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car is a haunting road movie traveling a path of love, loss, acceptance, and peace. Winner of three prizes at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, including Best Screenplay.
Drive My Car's imposing runtime holds a rich, patiently engrossing drama that reckons with self-acceptance and regret.
Canonical reviews: 215
Canonical fresh: 208
Canonical rotten: 7
Canonical calculated Tomatometer: 97%
Latest snapshot UTC: 2026-06-16 17:12:36
Snapshot Tomatometer: 97%
Snapshot review count: 215
Snapshot fresh count: 208
Snapshot rotten count: 7
Source note: Imported from manual review paste batch #1352 (full_snapshot)
| Company | Role |
|---|---|
| Sideshow / Janus Films | distributor |
| Bitters End | production |
| C&I Entertainment | production |
| Culture Entertainment | production |
| Drive My Car Production Committee | production |
| Nippon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippan) K.K. | production |
| The Asahi Shimbun Company | production |
| Billing | Name | Character |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hidetoshi Nishijima | Yusuke Kafuku |
| 2 | Toko Miura | Misaki Watari |
| 3 | Reika Kirishima | Oto, Kafuku's Wife |
| 4 | Yoo-rim Park | Lee Yoon-a |
| 5 | Dae-Young Jin | Kon Yoon-su |
| Batch ID | Status | Mode | Created | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 786 | processed | — | 2026-06-16 21:11:00 | Processed successfully into movie_id=770 using update_mode=merge_non_empty. |
| Batch ID | Local Snapshot | UTC Snapshot | Entered % | Entered Count | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1352 | 2026-06-16 12:12:00 (America/Panama) | 2026-06-16 17:12:36 | 97% | 215 | processed | Mode=full_snapshot. Processed 215 row(s); 0 row error(s). Parsed unique reviews in this batch=215, fresh=208, rotten=7, tomatometer=97%. Net new reviews added=215, fresh=208, rotten=7. Current canonical totals=215 reviews, 208 fresh, 7 rotten, tomatometer=97% (96.744%). Entered review count matched parsed batch count (215). Entered tomatometer matched parsed batch value (97%). |
| ID | Critic | Outlet | Fresh? | Score | RT Time Raw | Approx Published UTC | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 174672 | Ryan Swen | Taipei Mansions | Fresh | — | 2025-09-05T18:51:54Z | 2025-09-05 18:51:54 | Drive My Car marks out that space for thought, for pondering, and in doing so crowns the ascension of one of the 21st century’s finest filmmakers to date. |
| 174673 | Paul Emmanuel Enicola | The Movie Buff | Fresh | A+ | 2024-07-04T10:00:43Z | 2024-07-04 10:00:43 | Adroitly balances moments of levity and epiphanies of pain; while also allowing long, uninterrupted takes to get under the viewers’ skin for a payoff that pierces, not only the body, but also the soul. |
| 174674 | Amy Smith | InSession Film | Fresh | — | 2024-03-01T20:55:51Z | 2024-03-01 20:55:51 | When preparing myself to see Drive My Car for the first time, I made sure to get to a cinema and allow myself to be captivated for the three-hour runtime. |
| 174675 | Dave Giannini | InSession Film | Fresh | — | 2024-02-24T00:31:49Z | 2024-02-24 00:31:49 | Drive My Car will not be for everyone, but for those willing, your patience will be rewarded in the purest form of empathy available for cinephiles this year. |
| 174676 | Greg Carlson | Vague Visages | Fresh | — | 2023-07-28T20:20:49Z | 2023-07-28 20:20:49 | Misaki and Kafuku are surrounded by an incredible ensemble of characters with the capacity to astonish, but the central relationship that develops in Drive My Car fuels Hamaguchi’s examination of how people choose to process long-internalized feelings. |
| 174677 | Brian Susbielles | InSession Film | Fresh | — | 2023-02-22T19:49:39Z | 2023-02-22 19:49:39 | Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour drama of Chekov and the difficulties of human connection did not miss connecting with audiences and critics. |
| 174678 | Dallas King | Flick Feast | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-11-12T22:00:52Z | 2022-11-12 22:00:52 | It has been said it is not about the destination, it’s the journey. Writer-Director Hamaguchi understands and is ever mindful of that. Drive My Car is a perfectly paced journey that allows Yusuke to reach his final destination right on time. |
| 174679 | Andrew Heskins | easternKicks.com | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-11-11T13:59:48Z | 2022-11-11 13:59:48 | Could Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Murakami adaption be his best yet? |
| 174680 | Asia Frey | Lagniappe (Mobile, AL) | Fresh | — | 2022-10-04T18:59:26Z | 2022-10-04 18:59:26 | This film is complex and ambiguous, wordy, deliberate, character-driven and masterful. It earns every revelation, and it deserves every minute. |
| 174681 | Mitchell Beaupre | The Film Stage | Fresh | A+ | 2022-09-22T18:22:34Z | 2022-09-22 18:22:34 | I want to fall asleep while watching this film, I want to wake up and have it still be going, I want to simply exist with it at all times. |
| 174682 | Zoë Rose Bryant | Loud and Clear Reviews | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-09-01T07:45:44Z | 2022-09-01 07:45:44 | Drive My Car may be a bit too patiently paced for some, but others will appreciate its skillfully subtle storytelling and astute analysis of grief - as well as the poignant performances from Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura. |
| 174683 | Sarah Ward | Concrete Playground | Fresh | — | 2022-06-25T06:16:00Z | 2022-06-25 06:16:00 | Drive My Car is intimate and detailed about every element of its on-screen voyage and its character studies, and also a road map to soulful, relatable truths. |
| 174684 | Juan José Beteta | Cinencuentro | Fresh | — | 2022-06-21T16:07:51Z | 2022-06-21 16:07:51 | A deliberate film with an abundance of stories, some unusual, some disruptive, but all break conventional schemes and produce a decelerated sensation against the rhythm of our everyday lives. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 174685 | Tom O'Brien | Next Best Picture | Fresh | 9/10 | 2022-06-16T00:10:26Z | 2022-06-16 00:10:26 | "Drive My Car" is just as epic in its scope. Here, however, it's emotional scope, revealing the kind of feelings that may be small and personal at the start but widen to become vast and universal by the time the film reaches its powerful conclusion. |
| 174686 | Erick Estrada | Cinegarage | Fresh | — | 2022-06-13T19:03:40Z | 2022-06-13 19:03:40 | Hamaguchi turns a monotonous dialogue-heavy narrative into an explosion that carries us through the rest of the film. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 174687 | Elsa Fernández-Santos | El Pais (Spain) | Fresh | — | 2022-06-08T23:06:33Z | 2022-06-08 23:06:33 | In its understated way, we're witnessing one of the most extraordinary and profound movies of recent cinema, in which a wordsmith filmmaker like Hamaguchi wins us over with the power of silence. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 174688 | Marriska Fernandes | Exclaim! | Fresh | — | 2022-05-31T04:54:45Z | 2022-05-31 04:54:45 | A beautifully wrapped quiet work of art that hits you when you least expect it. It's a slow-burning arthouse vehicle about grief and love that unfolds over a three-hour run time. |
| 174689 | Alejandro G. Calvo | Sensacine | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-05-25T18:36:19Z | 2022-05-25 18:36:19 | One of the most delicate and beautiful works of our time... [Full review in Spanish] |
| 174690 | Victor Esquirol | Otroscines.com | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-05-16T23:25:53Z | 2022-05-16 23:25:53 | Real cinema. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 174691 | Hugo Hernández Valdivia | Cinexcepción | Fresh | — | 2022-05-10T19:09:08Z | 2022-05-10 19:09:08 | 100 Hamaguchi presents a film of amazing beauty that, with exquisite slowness, gains in detail and depth: in the style, yes, of Murakami, to make an automatic simile. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 174692 | Agustín Acevedo Kanopa | La Diaria | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2022-04-14T14:03:47Z | 2022-04-14 14:03:47 | In times when there is a particular insistence on the explosiveness of emotions, when lukewarmness is criticized as a lack of affective (or political) commitment, Drive my Car is not only a good film, but an important one. |
| 174693 | Sr. Rose Pacatte | St. Anthony Messenger | Fresh | — | 2022-04-12T20:20:00Z | 2022-04-12 20:20:00 | Drive My Car is a dramatic, artful showcase of human grief, love, and loss with exceptional acting that culminates in transcendence and freedom. |
| 174694 | Sukanya Verma | Rediff.com | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-04-12T05:55:37Z | 2022-04-12 05:55:37 | Drive My Car looks at the nature of grief through the emotions of reserved characters, but conveys a world of healing that cannot be summed, only felt most ardently, most appreciatively. |
| 174695 | James Kendrick | Q Network Film Desk | Rotten | 2/4 | 2022-04-09T03:32:00Z | 2022-04-09 03:32:00 | Pain and loss and grief and guilt are big emotions that the film manages to render small, which turns what should have been an emotionally engaging drama into a study in monotony. |
| 174696 | Yasser Medina | Cinefilia | Fresh | 7/10 | 2022-04-08T06:11:22Z | 2022-04-08 06:11:22 | The three hours of its intimate journey keep me buckled in my seat as, at a leisurely pace, it introduces his tragedy on wheels that examines loss, suffering, and self-acceptance in the endless pathways of human relationships. [Full review in Spanish] |
| 174697 | Alexa Dalby | Dog and Wolf | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-04-01T17:42:34Z | 2022-04-01 17:42:34 | Drive My Car is a mesmerising film that stays with you long afterwards. Its rhythm and pace enfolds the viewer: by the end you see how necessary and fitting that three-hour journey was and how much it encompassed. |
| 174698 | Gayle Sequeira | Film Companion | Fresh | — | 2022-04-01T13:38:31Z | 2022-04-01 13:38:31 | If the film feels like an enduring mystery by the end of its three-hour-long runtime, director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi creates the distinct impression that it’s only because people themselves often are. |
| 174699 | John McDonald | Australian Financial Review | Fresh | — | 2022-03-29T22:22:56Z | 2022-03-29 22:22:56 | Drive My Car is a film about grief, pain, guilt, shame, and the interface between art and life. |
| 174700 | Carla Hay | Culture Mix | Fresh | — | 2022-03-27T22:56:39Z | 2022-03-27 22:56:39 | The emotionally layered and very drawn-out Drive My Car won't appeal to people with short attention spans, but it's an immersive journey that memorably depicts the complexities of human lives. It's a three-hour movie where the last hour is the best hour. |
| 174701 | David Nusair | Reel Film Reviews | Rotten | 1.5/4 | 2022-03-27T19:07:38Z | 2022-03-27 19:07:38 | ...a largely (and distressingly) ineffective drama that mightve worked at half the length (but probably not). |
| 174702 | Robin Holabird | KUNR (Reno, NV) | Fresh | — | 2022-03-25T23:31:15Z | 2022-03-25 23:31:15 | Following a similar direction as Chekhov, Drive My Car speeds past the ordinary into extraordinary terrain. |
| 174703 | Graeme Tuckett | The Post NZ | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-03-24T21:32:42Z | 2022-03-24 21:32:42 | Drive My Car defies description or categorisation. |
| 174704 | Danny Leigh | Financial Times | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-03-24T17:45:22Z | 2022-03-24 17:45:22 | Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi makes it easy to stay put. The film passes at a glide. |
| 174705 | Tony Stamp | Flicks (AU, NZ, UK) | Fresh | — | 2022-03-22T20:32:07Z | 2022-03-22 20:32:07 | Its Hamaguchis deeply human filmmaking that invests you deeply, and early on. You will care about these people, and youll want to see what happens. |
| 174706 | Victor Pineyro | Seventh Art Studio | Fresh | 9/10 | 2022-03-20T15:45:46Z | 2022-03-20 15:45:46 | We are a mixture of our experiences; mainly our traumas. Can art be cathartic for every experience? Or is there a limit to artistic expression before facing ourselves? Drive My Car encloses grief, love and soulmates spectacularly. Full review in Spanish |
| 174707 | Brad Keefe | Columbus Alive | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-03-18T20:24:58Z | 2022-03-18 20:24:58 | The movie is powered by the understated performances of its two primary leads, both of whom employ a lot of stone-faced stoicism, their expressions concealing waves of grief with which neither has fully dealt. |
| 174708 | Sarah Bea Milner | Screen Rant | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2022-03-15T19:44:50Z | 2022-03-15 19:44:50 | Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car is a hauntingly beautiful drama that takes audiences on an unforgettable journey of love, loss and acceptance. |
| 174709 | Joanne Laurier | World Socialist Web Site | Rotten | — | 2022-03-14T14:59:09Z | 2022-03-14 14:59:09 | This nearly three-hour production may be striving for something real or serious but does not achieve it. Drive My Car is a largely gloomy and tedious work that does not tell us much, if anything, about contemporary life. |
| 174710 | Wade Major | FilmWeek (LAist) | Fresh | — | 2022-03-12T00:23:47Z | 2022-03-12 00:23:47 | I wish it had been 30 to 45 minutes shorter and a little less obsessed with Chekhov, but it's fine. |
| 174711 | Tim Cogshell | FilmWeek (LAist) | Fresh | — | 2022-03-12T00:23:08Z | 2022-03-12 00:23:08 | I really appreciated this film. It's very slow moving and you have to stick with it. |
| 174712 | Sonny Bunch | The Bulwark | Rotten | 2/4 | 2022-03-11T14:29:55Z | 2022-03-11 14:29:55 | It's talky without being snappy, languorous without being pleasurable. |
| 174713 | Carey-Ann Pawsey | Orca Sound | Fresh | 3.5/5 | 2022-03-10T17:03:14Z | 2022-03-10 17:03:14 | A film that is long (just under 3 hours long), winding and yet will capture your attention. |
| 174714 | James Marsh | Deep Dive Movie Reviews (YouTube) | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-03-09T07:04:35Z | 2022-03-09 07:04:35 | It's representative of a kind of storytelling that Hollywood shies away from, fearful that if we don't write it on the wall in blood or neon six feet high people wont get it...Regardless of what it wins, it should be championed. |
| 174715 | Shikhar Verma | High on Films | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2022-03-07T11:48:40Z | 2022-03-07 11:48:40 | Drive My Car shows a tender and melancholic way in which grief follows us around. Leading us to a wholly intimate and cathartic moment of acceptance where the reel and real dwell together and form newer meanings for those who can look through. |
| 174716 | Julia Swift | My Champlain Valley | Fresh | 9/10 | 2022-03-06T18:11:41Z | 2022-03-06 18:11:41 | If you can stick with the 3 hour run-time, you will be rewarded with a thoughtful film about avoiding the dark side of ourselves and others. I wish the cinematography and editing were as artful as the writing. |
| 174717 | Kristian M. Lin | Fort Worth Weekly | Fresh | — | 2022-03-04T23:51:59Z | 2022-03-04 23:51:59 | It’s a worthy entry in the great tradition of quiet, slow-paced Japanese dramas with an emphasis on character study. |
| 174718 | Josh Bell | The Inlander (Spokane, WA) | Fresh | 3/4 | 2022-03-04T00:41:04Z | 2022-03-04 00:41:04 | The movie takes its time building its narrative and defining its characters, and it requires patience to appreciate its many virtues. |
| 174719 | John Serba | Decider | Fresh | — | 2022-03-02T23:21:06Z | 2022-03-02 23:21:06 | Drive My Car is a film of rare intimacy. It’s a quiet triumph, maybe the quietest. |
| 174720 | David Lynch | KENS 5 TV (San Antonio) | Fresh | — | 2022-03-02T23:03:03Z | 2022-03-02 23:03:03 | "The engine to the stirring momentum is Hamaguchis disarmingly gentle touch. It breathes with uncommon cinematic patience a film of deep sighs and the sensation only draws us in further into the folds." |
| 174721 | Elissa Suh | Los Angeles Review of Books | Fresh | — | 2022-03-02T22:18:05Z | 2022-03-02 22:18:05 | In Drive My Car, Japanese director Rysuke Hamaguchi pressurizes the foundering emotional isolation in the Haruki Murakami story on which it is based to create an absorbing and discursive melodrama about communication, passivity, and regret. |
| 174722 | Ty Burr | Ty Burr's Watch List (Substack) | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-03-02T18:37:33Z | 2022-03-02 18:37:33 | The pieces Hamaguchi assembles don’t seem to add up, and yet when it’s over you may feel that the whole is much, much larger than the sum of the parts, in ways beyond the power to articulate. |
| 174723 | Siddhant Adlakha | IGN Movies | Fresh | 9/10 | 2022-03-02T17:58:33Z | 2022-03-02 17:58:33 | Drive My Car slowly peels back the layers of peoples burdens, and the way they carry them in silence, as Hamaguchis signature lengthy dialogue scenes carefully chip away at his characters. |
| 174724 | Calum Baker | Radio Times | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-24T16:55:23Z | 2022-02-24 16:55:23 | Drive My Car uses its remarkably unhurried pace to shattering effect. |
| 174725 | Maxwell Rabb | Chicago Reader | Fresh | — | 2022-02-23T00:11:25Z | 2022-02-23 00:11:25 | Hamaguchi’s film shows that it will remain beautiful, and viewers will forget that they are not in the red Saab, and instead, they’re together, watching a movie. |
| 174726 | Victoria Luxford | D Movies | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-22T13:09:46Z | 2022-02-22 13:09:46 | Drive My Car's brilliance lies in its celebration of the dirtiness of life, and how our greatest triumphs exist in simply carrying on. |
| 174727 | Jane Freebury | Jane Freebury | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-21T00:47:02Z | 2022-02-21 00:47:02 | A hypnotic, winding journey into the human heart and soul, sublimely well-executed with exceptional lead performances, a road movie deluxe that calls for an act of surrender |
| 174728 | Jason Fraley | WTOP (Washington, D.C.) | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2022-02-19T23:04:24Z | 2022-02-19 23:04:24 | The logline doesn't do the film any favors, making it sound like a twisty thriller when really its a slow-burn drama exploring themes of grief in a way thats both epic and intimate, thanks to complex performances by Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tko Miura. |
| 174729 | John Urbancich | JMuvies | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-02-19T16:33:17Z | 2022-02-19 16:33:17 | A road picture with heart, soul and, as its various themes might suggest, a tribute to the swerves and straightaways of life on the thoroughfare ahead. Just please be patient and in no real hurry to get wherever it is you're going. |
| 174730 | David Stratton | The Australian | Fresh | 3/5 | 2022-02-17T21:42:42Z | 2022-02-17 21:42:42 | It’s a well made, interesting film, but surely no masterpiece. |
| 174731 | Alison Gillmor | Winnipeg Free Press | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-17T20:25:25Z | 2022-02-17 20:25:25 | A long movie, with much of its runtime confined to a car interior, might not sound compelling, but the script is both direct and subtle, the look is lucid but layered, and the performances underplayed but powerful. |
| 174732 | Li Lai | Mediaversity Reviews | Fresh | B+ | 2022-02-17T16:19:49Z | 2022-02-17 16:19:49 | While Drive My Car counts as an easy win for multiculturalism, a male gaze persists throughout the film. |
| 174733 | Peter Gray | The AU Review | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-15T11:46:59Z | 2022-02-15 11:46:59 | Everything about Drive My Car is so specific and purposeful. |
| 174734 | Sean P. Means | The Movie Cricket | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-02-13T06:25:03Z | 2022-02-13 06:25:03 | So Drive My Car is great but is it three-hours great? Thats a decision left for each viewer. But I'll tell you this: For three hours, I was raptly paying attention, unable to guess where Hamaguchi was taking us next. |
| 174735 | Rene Sanchez | Cine Sin Fronteras | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-02-12T18:53:53Z | 2022-02-12 18:53:53 | An enthralling and introspective journey that takes us through the winding and mysterious roads of love and loss. [Full Review in Spanish] |
| 174736 | Doug Jamieson | The Jam Report | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-12T06:55:26Z | 2022-02-12 06:55:26 | An intimate character study and a captivating contemplation of love, grief, and human connection, it's one of the finest films of the season. Or any season. |
| 174737 | Paul Byrnes | Sydney Morning Herald | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2022-02-12T00:53:57Z | 2022-02-12 00:53:57 | It’s mysterious, impenetrable, creeping forward on many fronts like a lava flow of ideas and nuance. It’s also throat-catchingly beautiful, as sad as a funeral, and wise in a way few films ever aspire to be. |
| 174738 | Brian Eggert | Deep Focus Review | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-02-11T23:43:43Z | 2022-02-11 23:43:43 | It's an introspective film that emphasizes the importance of the road ahead instead of going around in the same circles every day, asking unanswerable questions of people who cannot respond. |
| 174739 | Bennett Campbell Ferguson | Willamette Week | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-02-11T18:30:07Z | 2022-02-11 18:30:07 | After you see Drive My Car, you will never look at snow, suspension bridges or stages the same way again. When you see the world through the searching eyes of director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, there is no such thing as mere scenery. |
| 174740 | Simon Miraudo | Movie Squad (RTRFM 92.1) | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-11T01:44:38Z | 2022-02-11 01:44:38 | A miraculous movie that takes a solemn and mysterious anecdote about the unknowability of anyone outside of your own heart and transforms it into a beguiling film experience of incredible depth. |
| 174741 | Kayleigh Donaldson | Pajiba | Fresh | — | 2022-02-11T00:22:15Z | 2022-02-11 00:22:15 | Its emotional rewards are extraordinary in a way that describing what happens cannot truly convey. |
| 174742 | Richard Crouse | Richard Crouse | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-02-10T14:52:24Z | 2022-02-10 14:52:24 | Patient viewers will be rewarded with a deeply felt relationship movie that sees two characters working through their personal recoveries to find a path forward in life. |
| 174743 | CJ Johnson | Film Mafia | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-02-10T10:37:13Z | 2022-02-10 10:37:13 | Its a beautifully crafted, moving, elegant and at times drily funny tale, superbly acted. |
| 174744 | Jim Schembri | jimschembri.com | Fresh | 3.5/5 | 2022-02-09T23:56:41Z | 2022-02-09 23:56:41 | Dont be intimidated by the length; director Ryusuke Hamaguchi paces the unfolding story in carefully judged emotional increments, using the awkward intimacy born of forced proximity to create an emotional landscape about loss, guilt and infidelity. |
| 174745 | Matthew Toomey | ABC Radio Brisbane | Fresh | B+ | 2022-02-09T23:25:02Z | 2022-02-09 23:25:02 | I love the irony that a movie which such a simple, innocuous title could offer up such complexity. |
| 174746 | Esther Zuckerman | Thrillist | Fresh | — | 2022-02-08T18:53:22Z | 2022-02-08 18:53:22 | The length of the film is daunting, but it's also a thoroughly engrossing piece of art that's sexy and thoughtful. |
| 174747 | Guillem Martinez Oya | Cinematismo | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-02-04T13:49:48Z | 2022-02-04 13:49:48 | A work of slow cooking, of pause, of life in position to death, of our leadership, of the interpretation we carry out. Full review in Spanish |
| 174748 | John Beifuss | Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-02-03T21:43:33Z | 2022-02-03 21:43:33 | In Hamaguchi's films, men and women turn to art to redirect the unsatisfying narratives of their lives. |
| 174749 | Chris McCoy | Memphis Flyer | Fresh | — | 2022-02-03T02:16:32Z | 2022-02-03 02:16:32 | Great films establish their own rhythm and seduce you into living on their time. |
| 174750 | Thomas Caldwell | ABC Radio Melbourne | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-02-02T10:50:06Z | 2022-02-02 10:50:06 | Everything about the film is presented in plain terms and in plain sight, but Hamaguchi draws parallels and delivers reveals with so much gentle grace. |
| 174751 | Shawn Edwards | Fox 4 Kansas City | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-02-01T22:20:29Z | 2022-02-01 22:20:29 | Not easy to sit through, but it never really drags. A penetrating look at our inner selves, but not for everyone. |
| 174752 | Ruth Maramis | FlixChatter Film Blog | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-02-01T03:13:13Z | 2022-02-01 03:13:13 | A thought-provoking ride that's enthralling in its quiet intensity. There's a lot of unpack here that leaves me ruminating even days after I watched it. |
| 174753 | Rob Thomas | Capital Times (Madison, WI) | Fresh | 4/4 | 2022-01-28T18:40:23Z | 2022-01-28 18:40:23 | Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's "Drive My Car" is an empathetic masterpiece that explores love, grief and the the porous line between performance and reality. |
| 174754 | Michael Calleri | Niagara Gazette | Fresh | — | 2022-01-23T04:30:35Z | 2022-01-23 04:30:35 | To a person, the acting in "Drive My Car" is exceptional. Hamaguchi lets his film's rhythm play out carefully and quite beautifully. |
| 174755 | Christopher Lloyd | The Film Yap | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-01-21T18:23:58Z | 2022-01-21 18:23:58 | A slow and contemplative drama that takes way too much time setting up its third act, but the last hour is so good we forgive it for the first two. |
| 174756 | Sean Collier | Pittsburgh Magazine | Fresh | 9/10 | 2022-01-21T13:50:26Z | 2022-01-21 13:50:26 | It's a somber, contemplative film with an uncanny rhythm. |
| 174757 | Peter Travers | ABC News | Fresh | — | 2022-01-21T13:40:23Z | 2022-01-21 13:40:23 | Here's the best movie you never heard of, a flat-out masterpiece from Japan that's a frontrunner to win the foreign-film Oscar and maybe pull a 'Parasite" and compete for Best Picture. Why not? It's enthralling from first scene to last. |
| 174758 | Margot Harrison | Seven Days (VT) | Fresh | 4.5/5 | 2022-01-21T01:22:34Z | 2022-01-21 01:22:34 | What emerges is a powerful portrait of how two people can find solace in shared pain - and begin to work their way toward hope. |
| 174759 | Frank J. Avella | Awards Daily | Fresh | A- | 2022-01-21T00:42:37Z | 2022-01-21 00:42:37 | The film has spellbinding moments. |
| 174760 | Owen Gabbey | Pittsburgh City Paper | Fresh | — | 2022-01-20T21:22:56Z | 2022-01-20 21:22:56 | Drive My Car is obsessed with language, how the same phrase can be morphed and changed to fit any particular meaning, and how we use our words to conceal our feelings, not expose them. |
| 174761 | David Sims | The Atlantic | Fresh | — | 2022-01-20T21:03:14Z | 2022-01-20 21:03:14 | Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's film takes all kinds of unexpected swerves from the sparse text it's adapting. But it triumphs because it understands the weight of those little details. |
| 174762 | Chris Hewitt | Minneapolis Star Tribune | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2022-01-20T20:21:46Z | 2022-01-20 20:21:46 | "Drive My Car" viewers need to be patient, but that patience is rewarded. |
| 174763 | Mark Feeney | Boston Globe | Fresh | 3.5/4 | 2022-01-20T16:50:38Z | 2022-01-20 16:50:38 | Over the course of just under three hours, Hamaguchi reworks and expands a Haruki Murakami short story (it first ran in The New Yorker) into an intimate epic. |
| 174764 | Deborah Young | The Film Verdict | Fresh | — | 2022-01-19T12:30:07Z | 2022-01-19 12:30:07 | Hamaguchi's long, measured, ultimately mesmerizing examination of the human soul. |
| 174765 | Tim Brayton | Alternate Ending | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-01-19T06:00:09Z | 2022-01-19 06:00:09 | [This] kind of length has a way of embedding a sense of majestic scale into even the most simple, spare material. |
| 174766 | A.S. Hamrah | The Baffler | Rotten | — | 2022-01-18T19:50:28Z | 2022-01-18 19:50:28 | To me there was something unsatisfying about it...It was all warm feeling and cold technique. All I could think was: end it. |
| 174767 | Jana Monji | Age of the Geek | Fresh | 5/5 | 2022-01-16T19:00:09Z | 2022-01-16 19:00:09 | Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi with co-writer Takamasa Oe have written a delicately tragic story about intersecting lives, drawing from the tradition of more than one culture. |
| 174768 | Wendy Shreve | Featuring Film | Fresh | — | 2022-01-16T12:40:05Z | 2022-01-16 12:40:05 | Much of Drive My Car comprises memorable scenes. Curiosity may be reason enough to see this award-winning film--at home. Be prepared, nevertheless, to fast forward (if watch on DVD or Blu-Ray) or get a snack from the kitchen. |
| 174769 | Russ Simmons | KKFI-FM (Kansas City) | Fresh | 4/5 | 2022-01-15T19:00:07Z | 2022-01-15 19:00:07 | "Drive My Car" is an empathetic character study that requires real effort to watch, but patient viewers will be rewarded. |
| 174770 | Al Alexander | The Patriot Ledger | Fresh | A | 2022-01-14T21:30:21Z | 2022-01-14 21:30:21 | Hamaguchi more than compensates by eliciting heartfelt performances from Nishijima and Miura that leave you breathless. |
| 174771 | Jonathan W. Hickman | The Newnan Times-Herald | Fresh | 8/10 | 2022-01-14T20:00:21Z | 2022-01-14 20:00:21 | ...a daunting but ultimately rewarding watch. |
Showing the latest 100 canonical reviews for this movie.