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John Hartl, Seattle Times: It may be the best work to date from the talented 34-year-old writer-director of Twenty Four Seven (1997). Read more
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Masterfully charted and acted, as are the boy's early forays into sex. Read more
David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle: Don't expect a history lesson: Shaun's story is more than enough to grab and hold your attention. Read more
Noel Murray, AV Club: Like all of Shane Meadows' work to date, his latest captures the simple pleasures of hanging out with a big group of friends, laughing at nothing. And it shows how easily that camaraderie can shade into hooliganism. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: There's a gutter pride taken in how aggressively Shaun confronts the world, but there's also a blunt, no-nonsense analysis of where the kid goes wrong. Read more
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: The writer-director brilliantly juxtaposes the personal and the political, bookending a stirring coming-of-age drama with the provocative opening and an equally affecting end sequence. Read more
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: A drama that's so potent and persuasive yet also natural and intimate that it almost has the heft of a documentary. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: A movie about the allure of groupthink and how the warm comfort of being surrounded by peers wilts all sense of balance. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Even if the story is misty in its didacticism: No matter how tough the times, just say no to racism and hatred. Read more
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: A hard-fisted punch of reality based on the filmmaker's experiences growing up in England's Midlands in 1983. Read more
Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: There is scarcely a false note in writer-director Shane Meadows' semi-autobiographical drama about a withdrawn, fatherless boy coming of age in Thatcherite England. Read more
Jan Stuart, Newsday: Meadows' electric drama takes the audience with it from the percolating opening moments through its hopeful (if ever-so-contrived) denouement, filling the landscape with memorably engaging characters and potent ensemble performances. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A gripping bit of British drama. Read more
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Turgoose, in his first film role, is entirely convincing. Read more
V.A. Musetto, New York Post: The lensing by Daniel Cohen captures the day-in, day-out dreariness of dead-end lives, and the musical soundtrack is infectious. Read more
Rex Reed, New York Observer: This is England is a vile exercise in nihilism that goes nowhere fast. Read more
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Until the final scene of Meadows' edgy, uneasy film, the suspense is killing. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This Is England may be set in 1983 but it's as relevant today as it was then. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is taut, tense, relentless. It shows why Shaun feels he needs to belong to a gang, what he gets out of it and how it goes wrong. Without saying so, it also explains why skinheads are skinheads. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's one of the simplest and best re-creations of downscale urban England during the gritty post-punk years ever put on screen, and it's both upsetting and very funny. Read more
Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: 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. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: 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. Read more
Ben Walters, Time Out: Cross-cutting between Roland Rat and Maggie Thatcher, rioting and the royal wedding, ita(TM)s a nifty scene-setter for a deft, heartfelt local story. Read more
Leslie Felperin, Variety: With its knockout lead perfs and taut if slightly familiar construction, this '80s-set dramedy about a skinhead gang reps Meadows' most fluently made film so far. Read more
Nathan Lee, Village Voice: Isolated excellence and larger lack of nerve-all dots, no connection-grows frustrating as England turns from the personal to the political, from character study to social studies. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Humane and complex. Read more