--- title: "Late Spring: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/late-spring/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/late-spring" critics_score: 89 critics_reviews: 8 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Late Spring (1949): what the critics said Critics' score 89 from 8 reviews: 8 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative. The reviews are unanimously positive, with praise centred on Ozu’s ability to make ordinary domestic moments carry deep feeling. Most critics find melancholy, affection and resignation beneath the film’s surface calm, crediting its precise compositions, minimal camera movement and patient attention to everyday behaviour. The performances of Chishū Ryū and Setsuko Hara draw particular praise from Time Out, while the wider consensus values the care with which Ozu observes emotions his characters cannot easily express. The differences concern the degree of enthusiasm rather than any substantial rejection of the film. Time Out notes that some social customs may feel less familiar than those in other Ozu films. Empire offers the most qualified response, admiring the direction and acting but finding the emotional impact short of Tokyo Story’s. Elsewhere, restraint is consistently treated as a strength: the reviews stress how much feeling the film conveys without overt display. ## Slant Magazine — Jaime N. Christley Rating 4/4. 23 April 2012. The critic hails it as a great masterpiece and the summation of Ozu’s style, praising its lyricism in expressing melancholy, bittersweet joy, and resignation around the impermanence of life through minimal camera movement, pillow shots, and observations of everyday domestic scenes. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/late-spring/) ## The AV Club — Ignatiy Vishnevetsky Rating A. 4 March 2016. The critic calls it a quietly staggering first masterpiece of Ozu’s late period and a restoration highlight, praising how it invests tremendous emotional weight in the quotidian through a mosaic of discrete shots and the famous vase sequence suggesting complex feelings of change and resignation. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/yasujiro-ozu-s-quietly-staggering-late-spring-returns-i-1798186831) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 13 February 2005. Ebert calls Late Spring one of Ozu's best films and praises its emotional depth beneath the surface calm. He singles out the father's solitary apple-peeling scene as one of the saddest ever filmed by Ozu. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-late-spring-1972) ## The New Yorker — Richard Brody Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 28 November 2011. Brody praises Ozu's quiet astonishment in revealing the hidden depths of ordinary life and the exacting subtlety with which he observes his characters. He notes how the film shows Noriko's smile turning into a rictus of pain amid the tyranny of love and social expectation. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/late-spring) ## The New York Times Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 22 July 1972. The review describes Late Spring as one of Ozu's finest films, noting its profound respect for the characters' privacy and the mystery of their emotions. It highlights the story of a father gently steering his daughter toward independence through a necessary deception. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/22/archives/screen-japanese-lifelate-spring-by-ozu-opens-at-new-yorker.html) ## Time Out — TCh Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 10 September 2012. The critic calls it a remarkable, piercing film central to understanding Ozu's work. They single out the great beauty, humanity, and heartbreaking performances of Chishū Ryū and Setsuko Hara for praise, while noting some social customs may feel more foreign than in other Ozu films. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/late-spring) ## The Independent — Carl Franklin Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 5 August 1993. The critic highlights a powerful scene of the widower peeling an apple alone after his daughter has left, praising Ozu's use of repetition and restraint to convey deep emotion and the pain of parental loss. [Read the review](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/director-s-cut-the-feeling-is-in-the-peeling-carl-franklin-hails-the-simplicity-in-ozu-s-late-spring-1459444.html) ## Empire — Kim Newman Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. The film is praised for its precise direction and acting that gives it the formal beauty of a miniature, with a quietly devastating final image of abandonment; it is seen as restrained yet passionate, though not quite matching the impact of Tokyo Story. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/late-spring-review/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/late-spring.md