--- title: "The Outrun" year: 2024 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-outrun" fi1m_id: "the-outrun" imdb_id: "tt11687002" tmdb_id: 785542 wikidata_id: "Q121363012" fi1m_score: 72 critics_score: 66 critics_reviews: 13 published: "2026-09-09" updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:58.327548+00:00" region: "US" 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." --- # The Outrun (2024) Directed by Nora Fingscheidt · 1h 58m · MPA R · Drama ## Identity The Outrun - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-outrun - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** the-outrun - **IMDb ID:** tt11687002 - **TMDB ID:** 785542 - **Wikidata ID:** Q121363012 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11687002/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/785542, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q121363012 **Fi1m score: 72** · Critics 66 from 13 reviews *In a sentence:* Saoirse Ronan versus the North Atlantic, with the voiceover stepping in every ten minutes to referee > Nora Fingscheidt’s film of Amy Liptrot’s memoir is fractured, wind-blasted and built almost entirely around Saoirse Ronan, who carries it without visible strain. The cutting is bold; the voiceover explains too much, and the last half hour repeats itself. Worth your evening. ## Synopsis Rona (Saoirse Ronan) returns to Orkney, where she grew up, after years in London that ended in rehab. She moves between her mother, Annie (Saskia Reeves), and her father, Andrew (Stephen Dillane), who lives in a caravan on the farm and whose moods run high and low. Nora Fingscheidt’s film, written with Amy Liptrot and Daisy Lewis from Liptrot’s memoir, cuts back and forth between the island present and the London years, including a relationship with Daynin (Paapa Essiedu) that did not survive the drinking. Rona tries to stay sober and keeps count of the days. It runs 118 minutes and carries a 15 certificate. ## Review Rona (Saoirse Ronan) has come home to Orkney from London with her drinking a few weeks behind her and nothing yet in front of it. Nora Fingscheidt’s film, written with Daisy Lewis and Amy Liptrot from Liptrot’s memoir, does not tell this in order. It cuts between the clubs and flats of London, the rehab ward and the fields where Rona is now trying to stay well, and trusts us to sort them. For the first hour the trust is repaid. The film is good, Ronan is better than the film, and the voiceover keeps getting between us and her. Ronan plays Rona with her whole body. Drunk, she is loose and loud and quick to turn; sober, she walks as if the ground might tilt, hands in pockets, shoulders up against a wind she has stopped noticing. Ronan also produced, with Jack Lowden and Dominic Norris, and the film is built around her. There is nobody else here to carry it and she does not put it down. Two cinematographers are credited, Yunus Roy Imer and Raymond Besant, and the film looks like it. London is handheld, strobed and close: faces in club light, the grey of a morning after through a dirty window. Orkney is wide and level and mostly grey-green, with the sea taking a cliff apart at the edge of the frame and seals hauled out on the rocks, filmed by someone who plainly waited for them. Stephan Bechinger cuts between the two on a feeling rather than a date, and early on this is exactly how memory behaves when you are trying not to think about something. Andy Drummond gives the island a caravan fitted out by a man who has stopped caring and a cottage with almost nothing in it, and Grace Snell puts Rona in jumpers a size too large that she seems to be hiding inside. Then the narration starts to get in the way. It is not the weather or the island lore that bothers us; it is the habit of saying aloud what the picture has just shown. By the last half hour the film has settled into a loop of field, shore, phone call, field, and we were bored, and then cross, because the images had been trusted for an hour and were now being second-guessed by the people who wrote them. The people around Rona are thinner than she is. Stephen Dillane, as her father Andrew, swings between wild high spirits and a bed he cannot leave, and Dillane is good in both, but the film uses him as weather too. Saskia Reeves gives her mother Annie a steadiness the script treats with more patience than we expected. Paapa Essiedu, as Daynin in London, is warm and hurt and gone too soon; the film knows what he is for and does not much wonder who he is. Here is what got us. Early on, Bechinger cuts from a London night, close and loud and going wrong, straight to a grey Orkney morning with the wind up and nothing in the frame but Rona and the sea. The two are not compared; they are simply put next to each other, and the gap between them is where the drinking went. John Gürtler and Jan Miserre’s score sits low under the wind and the birds and lets the cut do the work. We were moved more than we expected by a woman standing still, because we had just been shown what it cost her to get there. Fingscheidt’s *System Crasher* (2019) had the same nervous cutting, and it was the better film because the child at its centre could not explain herself. Most films about drinking are about the fall; this one is about the long dull business of staying stopped, and it is honest about how little happens and how much that costs. See it in a cinema, for the sea and the sound. At home, in a quiet room, the voiceover gets louder. It runs 118 minutes and carries a 15. *Fi1m score 72, published 9 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews agree on one thing and split on nearly everything else. Saoirse Ronan’s performance as Rona is praised almost without exception, described as raw, full-bodied and unshowy, and several critics say it holds the film together when the filmmaking does not. Orkney gets similar credit: the wind and the sea are singled out as often as the lead. The disagreement is over Nora Fingscheidt’s fractured structure. Most critics find the time-jumping and montage an honest way of showing what addiction feels like from the inside; a sizeable minority find it undisciplined. The Los Angeles Times calls the result a meandering travelogue, The New Yorker finds the fragments too rushed to let the performance breathe, and The Times, the lone outright negative, objects to the structure and to Ronan’s accent. Even admirers note a baggy final third and narration that says what the images already show. The spread is wide, from warm four-star notices to two. ## Straight answers **Is The Outrun worth watching?** *The Outrun* is worth watching for anyone who wants a drama about the slow work of staying sober, built almost entirely on Saoirse Ronan, and we scored it 72. Ronan is better than the film around her; the voiceover explains what the pictures have already shown, and the last half hour repeats itself. See it in a cinema if you can, for the sea and the sound. **How long is The Outrun, and what is it rated?** *The Outrun* runs 1h 58m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a drama film. **Where can I watch The Outrun in the US?** *The Outrun* is streaming on Netflix in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $3.99. It leaves Netflix on 18 September. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is The Outrun, and is it suitable for children?** *The Outrun* is not a violent or frightening film, but its 15 certificate is earned by the drinking, the rehab ward and the London nights that go wrong. There is no bloodshed to speak of; the hard material is a woman coming apart and slowly putting herself back together. It is not for children, and younger teenagers would find it slow rather than upsetting. **What should I watch after The Outrun?** After *The Outrun*, try [*Another Round*](https://film.one/film/another-round) (2020, Fi1m 80): Four Danish teachers drink on purpose; funnier than this, and just as honest about the morning. Then [*Aftersun*](https://film.one/film/aftersun) (2022, Fi1m 85): Memory cut out of order and trusted to make its own sense, without a narrator. ### Reviews we read (23) - **Little White Lies**, Katherine McLaughlin (4/4/4): The critic highlights the sensationally directed and performed film, with Fingscheidt crafting a visceral experience of recovery and Ronan delivering a deeply affecting performance, balanced with humour and detail. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-outrun) - **The i Paper**, Francesca Steele (80/100, inferred): The vivid, pulsating film favours texture and experimentation over plot to convey what addiction feels like. Saoirse Ronan gives an astonishing full-body performance that could finally win her an Oscar. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan-3293579) - **Time Out**, Stephen A Russell (4/5): The critic commends Saoirse Ronan's stunning, towering performance as Rona, noting the film's formal boldness and majestic depiction of Orkney, while handling traumas with care. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-outrun-review-2024) - **Empire**, Laura Venning (70/100, inferred): The film offers a sensitive, non-judgemental portrayal of addiction and mental illness but is sometimes baggy and repetitive in its final third. It is anchored by Saoirse Ronan's typically transcendent performance. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/the-outrun/) - **The Telegraph** (60/100, inferred): The review praises Ronan's performance as grounding the film, but criticizes the flashy directorial style and the film's tendency to make recovery seem too easy, with a strained catharsis. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2024/02/18/the-outrun-film-review-saorise-ronan-amy-liptrot/) - **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (50/100, inferred): Acknowledges Saoirse Ronan's authentic performance in this recovery drama but finds the somber, fragmented style overwhelmingly drab and lacking fire. Criticizes the meditative, free-form adaptation for failing to ignite despite stylish elements. [Read](https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan-sundance-1235891320/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Robert Abele (45/100, inferred): Notes Saoirse Ronan's compelling portrait of alcoholism and recovery but faults the undisciplined filmmaking, with shaky-cam, time-jumping, and narration turning it into a meandering travelogue rather than a focused drama. Singles out the lack of patient characterization amid the montage-like approach. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-10-03/review-the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan) - **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (40/100, inferred): Finds the adaptation sincere but disappointingly constrained, with no creative or emotional risk in its telling of addiction and recovery. Criticizes the rushed, illustrative style that reduces scenes to fragments and limits the lead performance's depth. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-outrun-reviewed-a-disappointingly-constrained-showcase-for-saoirse-ronan) - **RogerEbert.com**, Tomris Laffly: Praises the film's tender exploration of recovery through nature and solitude, centered on Saoirse Ronan's career-best performance as an alcoholic rebuilding her life on the Orkney Islands. Highlights the inventive, non-linear structure and documentary-like interludes on island life as strengths that make the film surprising and emotionally resonant. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-outrun-film-review) - **Screen Daily**: The critic finds Ronan's delicate performance gives grace and steel to this familiar addiction story, with a compassionate mix of optimism and pain in a modest, unfussy approach. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/the-outrun-sundance-review/5189434.article) - **Sight and Sound**, Guy Lodge: The critic praises the film's poetic, fragmented structure and Saoirse Ronan's performance as conveying defiant power in self-redemption, while noting some loss of secondary character nuance. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/outrun-saoirse-ronan-brings-quiet-defiance-this-elegant-study-addiction) - **Slant Magazine**, Ross McIndoe: Nora Fingscheidt deftly captures the push-pull between chaotic urban nightlife and the quiet, sometimes suffocating landscapes of Orkney. Ronan soars with a raw, rough-edged performance that conveys both charisma and the pain of feeling adrift while navigating addiction and family mental illness through vivid natural metaphors. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan/) - **The Guardian**: The critic finds the film a refreshingly unconventional take on addiction recovery due to its fractured structure and focus on the present moment, praising the intelligence of the filmmaking and Ronan's performance, while noting it sometimes leans too heavily on shots of the protagonist in fields. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/sep/28/the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan-impresses-in-a-refreshingly-unconventional-recovery-drama) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney: Saoirse Ronan delivers a turbulent, emotionally charged performance as a recovering alcoholic returning to her Orkney Islands roots. The drama is often punishing but punctuated by nature's transcendent power, with distinctive elements that elevate it beyond a standard addiction story. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan-1235792229/) - **The New York Times**, Alissa Wilkinson (Critic's Pick): Celebrates Saoirse Ronan's stunning performance in a recovery story about an alcoholic seeking healing on the remote Orkney Islands after rock bottom in London. Singles out Ronan's ability to elevate the familiar narrative into something beautiful and joyful despite occasional overdone elements. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/03/movies/the-outrun-review.html) - **The Times** (★★☆☆☆): The critic criticizes the stultifying structure, one-dimensional character, and Ronan's accent, finding it tedious. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan-bmh9bdjt8) - **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri: Saoirse Ronan gives one of her most transcendent performances in this windswept drama about a woman rebuilding after addiction. The film shines through its intoxicating montages that capture both the allure of hedonistic abandon and its brutal consequences, using nature and myth to explore control and helplessness. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/the-outrun-review-saoirse-ronan-at-her-most-transcendent.html) - **HeyUGuys**, Linda Marric (4/5): A meditative, introspective adaptation that captures the struggle for sobriety amid stark island beauty, anchored by Saoirse Ronan's career-defining turn as a resilient woman confronting her past. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/the-outrun-review/) - **The Skinny**, Jamie Dunn (★★★★): The critic praises Nora Fingscheidt's lyrical adaptation for balancing depictions of sobriety's angsty boredom with alcohol's chaotic energy. The wind-blasted Orkney landscape and Saoirse Ronan's transcendent central performance are singled out as the film's chief strengths. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/the-outrun-saoirse-ronan) - **Collider**, Ross Bonaime (7/10): The film is a powerful addiction drama thanks to a magnificent performance by Saoirse Ronan and assured direction by Nora Fingscheidt that expertly handles a nonlinear structure. Some unnecessary narration is the only clumsy element in an otherwise assured and remarkable work. [Read](https://collider.com/the-outrun-movie-review/) - **The Playlist**, Gregory Ellwood (B-): Ronan's strong, non-showy lead performance and the film's visually compelling contrast between urban chaos and island tranquility stand out in this recovery drama, though it occasionally repeats and overstays its welcome. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/the-outrun-saoirse-ronan-stars-in-the-adaptation-of-the-best-selling-memoir-20240119/) - **The Wrap** (55/100, inferred): The critic finds Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation muddled in narrative structure and uneven in tone, despite smart directorial touches. They single out Saoirse Ronan’s emotionally raw central performance and the film’s ambitious visuals and recovery themes for praise. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/saoirse-ronan-the-outrun-review/) - **Film Stories**, James Harvey: The critic finds the film empathetic and authentic in its portrayal of recovery and fear, praising Saoirse Ronan's believable, understated performance as a woman navigating sobriety and family trauma on the Orkney Islands. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/reviews/the-outrun-review-sobriety-and-fear-on-the-islands-of-orkney/) ## Details - **Director:** Nora Fingscheidt - **Director:** Nora Fingscheidt - **Writer:** Amy Liptrot, Nora Fingscheidt, Daisy Lewis - **Cinematography:** Yunus Roy Imer, Raymond Besant - **Editor:** Stephan Bechinger - **Music:** John Gürtler, Jan Miserre - **Production design:** Andy Drummond - **Costume design:** Grace Snell - **Producer:** Saoirse Ronan, Jack Lowden, Dominic Norris - **Cast:** Saoirse Ronan as Rona; Paapa Essiedu as Daynin; Nabil Elouahabi as Samir; Izuka Hoyle as Gloria; Lauren Lyle as Julie; Stephen Dillane as Andrew; Saskia Reeves as Annie; Naomi Wirthner as Amanda - **Runtime:** 1h 58m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 4 October 2024 - **Genres:** Drama - **Box office:** $4 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgzzDQ3OpOk ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming, leaving 2026-09-18 - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-10.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BR, CA, CL, CO, DE, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, IN, IT, JP, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, SE, TR, UA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Another Round* (2020), Fi1m 80: Four Danish teachers drink on purpose; funnier than this, and just as honest about the morning. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/another-round.md) - *The Edge of the World* (1937): Michael Powell on a Scottish island being emptied by the sea; the same cliffs, fewer words. - *Krisha* (2015): One Thanksgiving, one relapse, one house; addiction as a family event, shot like a heist. - *Aftersun* (2022), Fi1m 85: Memory cut out of order and trusted to make its own sense, without a narrator. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/aftersun.md) - *Rams* (2015): Two Icelandic brothers, some sheep and a great deal of weather; stubbornness as a way of life. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-outrun