---
title: "Olive Kitteridge"
year: 2014
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/olive-kitteridge"
fi1m_score: 84
critics_score: 79
critics_reviews: 8
published: "2026-09-17T12:59:57.652896+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T12:59:57.844536+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."
---

# Olive Kitteridge (2014)

Created by Jane Anderson · 1h 00m · MPA TV-14 · Drama

**Fi1m score: 84** · Critics 79 from 8 reviews

*In a sentence:* Twenty-five years in a Maine kitchen with a woman who thinks kindness is a character flaw

> Lisa Cholodenko’s four-part adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s novel follows a sharp-tongued Maine woman and her mild husband across twenty-five years. Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins are as good as you have heard; the later hours drift, but we recommend it warmly.

## Synopsis

Crosby, a small town on the coast of Maine. Olive Kitteridge (Frances McDormand) says what she thinks to everyone, her husband included. Henry (Richard Jenkins) runs the pharmacy and wishes people good morning as if he means it. He hires a new assistant, Denise Thibodeau (Zoe Kazan), a shy newlywed whose husband is also called Henry (Brady Corbet), and begins to look forward to work more than to home. Olive notices. Their son Christopher (John Gallagher Jr., once grown) learns which parent to be afraid of. Olive has a private sympathy of her own for Jim O’Casey (Peter Mullan). The series follows the marriage and the town across twenty-five years.

## Review

Olive Kitteridge (Frances McDormand) lives in Crosby, a small town on the coast of Maine, and has never in her life softened a sentence to spare anyone. Her husband Henry (Richard Jenkins) runs the pharmacy and softens all of his. Jane Anderson’s four-part adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s novel, directed by Lisa Cholodenko, follows the two of them for twenty-five years, and takes a marriage in which neither party would say the word love out loud and makes it the whole story. For a stretch of its second half it is slower than it needs to be. We recommend it warmly, over two evenings rather than one.

The first hour is mostly Henry’s. He takes on a new assistant at the shop, Denise Thibodeau (Zoe Kazan), a shy newlywed in thick glasses, and something in her gratitude for ordinary courtesies undoes him. Jenkins plays this without a single thing Olive could point to, and that is the point: Henry is not planning anything, he is simply happier at work than at home. Olive knows it before he does. McDormand gives her the flat look of a woman doing a sum, then says something true and unforgivable across the dinner table. Their son Christopher, who grows up to be played by John Gallagher Jr., learns to eat in silence.

Frederick Elmes, who shot [*Blue Velvet*](https://film.one/film/blue-velvet) for David Lynch, films the town in cold clear light, greens and greys, the look of a resort after the visitors have gone. Julie Berghoff’s production design gives the Kitteridges a house nobody ever decided to decorate and Henry a pharmacy of brown bottles and a bell over the door. Jenny Eagan puts Olive in shapeless coats and Henry in cardigans and barely changes either across the decades, which is right; these are people who found their clothes and stopped. Carter Burwell’s score is mostly a piano, a few notes at a time, and it knows when to stop.

The series is built from Strout’s linked stories, and the town fills in round the edges. Rosemarie DeWitt plays Rachel Coulson, a neighbour whose troubles Olive alone seems able to look at directly. Peter Mullan is Jim O’Casey, a man Olive looks at differently from everyone else; he and McDormand share a car for a few minutes and suggest a whole other life. Martha Wainwright, as Angela O’Meara, sings at the piano bar where the Kitteridges eat, Jesse Plemons is Jerry McCarthy, the delivery boy, and Ann Dowd is a neighbour called Bonnie Newton. None of these parts is large. All of them are cast as if they were.

The performance we keep thinking about is Jenkins doing almost nothing. Henry, alone in the shop after a customer has gone, holds a look on his face he would never let Olive see, and Cholodenko keeps the camera on him longer than most directors would, until we understand what he is not saying. Anderson gives him no speech to carry it. Jeffrey M. Werner’s editing works the same way across the whole four hours, jumping years at a time and trusting us to read the gap from a face rather than a caption. We were moved more than we had expected by a man weighing out pills.

The trouble comes later. The second half moves into losses we will not describe, and Anderson has less to work with once the marriage has settled into its shape. Christopher’s adult strand is thin: Gallagher is asked to carry a lifetime of grievance in a handful of scenes, and the script has shown us the causes without the accumulation, so they play as summary. Bill Murray arrives late, as Jack Kennison, in a part we will not spoil beyond saying the series is a little too pleased to have him.

Most critics have praised it, and one or two have found it miserable. It is not miserable. Olive is funny, often on purpose, and McDormand times the insults like a comic who has stopped needing the laugh. What the series is, mostly, is slow, and the slowness is where McDormand and Jenkins do their work.

It is a series about people who cannot say what they feel, and it says it for them. Olive would tell you that sentence was soft.

*Fi1m score 84, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like it, and the praise clusters on Frances McDormand’s Olive, with Richard Jenkins’s Henry close behind. Several single out the marriage between them, awkward and unglamorous and lasting, as the heart of the piece, and the adaptation is credited with keeping the novel’s shape across four hours without hurrying it. Lisa Cholodenko’s direction is praised for balance and restraint, and the tone, dry and sad and funny at the same moment, is admired almost everywhere.

The reservations concern pace and mood. The Guardian, the one mixed review, finds the pacing stagnant and the quantity of misery hard to take. Collider, otherwise warm, notes padding and a slow final stretch. Nobody faults the acting. The spread is fairly wide in score but narrow in substance: the doubters agree with the admirers about what is good here, and simply find it slow.

### Reviews we read (8)

- **The AV Club**, Libby Hill (A): The critic lauds the miniseries for distilling the novel into a sparse, intimate epic that captures small-town bonds and human complexity. It singles out the nuanced, unconventional love between Olive and her husband as portrayed by McDormand and Jenkins. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/olive-kitteridge-is-an-epic-of-intimacy-1798181885)
- **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the series thrilling due mainly to McDormand's perfect, sharp-tongued performance and highlights its unobtrusive ambition in storytelling structure and empathy for flawed characters. It praises the direction and cast for making the material deeply satisfying. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2014/11/tv-review-hbo-olive-kitteridge-frances-mcdormand.html)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney (85/100, inferred): The review lauds the miniseries as an emotionally satisfying, funny-sad adaptation directed with balance by Lisa Cholodenko, with McDormand delivering a memorable performance. It praises the portrayal of marriage and community, noting its class act quality and the strong ensemble. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/olive-kitteridge-venice-review-729366/)
- **IndieWire**, Celluloid Liberation Front (B+): The critic positions the series as advancing a new form of televisual fiction focused on existential elaboration rather than plot. It praises the adaptation's handling of time, intimate character details, and strong performances led by Frances McDormand. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/article/review-olive-kitteridge-continues-the-existential-exploration-of-true-detective-20140914)
- **The Telegraph**, Michael Hogan (80/100, inferred): The classy adaptation is soulful, witty and wise, finding poetry in prosaic places through strong performances from Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins and a darkly matter-of-fact tone. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11290947/Olive-Kitteridge-HBO-Sky-Atlantic-Review.html)
- **Variety**, Peter Debruge (80/100, inferred): The critic praises Frances McDormand's complex portrayal and the miniseries' finely crafted adaptation that captures the essence of the book over four hours, highlighting its existential concerns and character depth. They single out the strong performances, particularly McDormand and Richard Jenkins, and the direction by Lisa Cholodenko. [Read](https://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/venice-film-review-olive-kitteridge-1201295397/)
- **The Guardian** (50/100, inferred): The series is painstakingly characterised and carefully acted, with strong performances especially from Frances McDormand, but the pacing feels stagnant and the high misery quotient can become excessive. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/03/olive-kitteridge-review-characters-shine-pace-slack-70s-maine)
- **Collider**, Allison Keene (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the miniseries a fascinating if not particularly upbeat watch, praising the quick dialogue, high-level acting, and Lynchian moments while noting structural padding and a slow pace in later episodes. McDormand's nuanced portrayal of the acerbic Olive is singled out as entrancing and universal in its flaws. [Read](https://collider.com/olive-kitteridge-review-hbo/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Jane Anderson
- **Creator:** Jane Anderson
- **Director:** Lisa Cholodenko
- **Teleplay:** Jane Anderson
- **Novel:** Elizabeth Strout
- **Cinematography:** Frederick Elmes
- **Editor:** Jeffrey M. Werner
- **Music:** Carter Burwell
- **Production design:** Julie Berghoff
- **Costume design:** Jenny Eagan
- **Producer:** David Coatsworth
- **Cast:** Frances McDormand as Olive Kitteridge; Richard Jenkins as Henry Kitteridge; Zoe Kazan as Denise Thibodeau; Rosemarie DeWitt as Rachel Coulson; Martha Wainwright as Angela O'Meara; John Gallagher Jr. as Christopher Kitteridge; John T. Mullen as Kevin Coulson; Ann Dowd as Bonnie Newton
- **Runtime:** 1h 00m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-14
- **Release (the US):** 2 November 2014
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTHtPIilE6c

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Primetime Emmy Awards 2015: Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special (won); Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie (won); Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie (won); Outstanding Limited Miniseries (won)

## If you liked this

- *Another Year* (2010), Fi1m 87: Mike Leigh’s long marriage watched over four seasons, with a lonely friend the Kitteridges would recognise. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/another-year.md)
- *Make Way for Tomorrow* (1937): An old couple nobody has room for; Leo McCarey’s plain, unbearable melodrama.
- *Scenes from a Marriage* (1973): Bergman’s six-part marriage for television, where the arguments are longer and the kitchens smaller.
- *The Visitor* (2007): Richard Jenkins alone in a lead, a widower learning the drum; quiet and exact.
- *45 Years* (2015), Fi1m 88: Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, a week before an anniversary, and one letter from the past. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/45-years.md)

---
© 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/tv/olive-kitteridge