The Bend in the River

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Synopsis

Following and filming friends for nearly fifty-years. THE BEND IN THE RIVER is an exploration of the inexorable flow of aging and the unfinished project of living.

Letterboxd User Reviews

3.7
438
189
186
RATINGS 4 FANS
3.7

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Metacritic

90
Aug 17, 2026

In The Bend in the River, a lot of simple observations and moments add up to something profound. Its wisdom sneaks up on you, just like age.

Metacritic review by Alissa Wilkinson
Alissa Wilkinson
The New York Times
90
Aug 17, 2026

A melancholy sense of powerlessness runs through these films, tempering and complicating the lyricism. The earth changes; the river changes; people change; and as much as these characters might have thought they had some control over the world, they now realize that they didn’t. And perhaps the reason why Moss keeps cutting to all that older footage is because our conception of our earlier lives changes the more we live. The future remains unwritten, but weirdly, so too does the past.

Metacritic review by Bilge Ebiri
Bilge Ebiri
New York Magazine (Vulture)
83
Aug 14, 2026

Even if you haven’t seen the prior films in the trilogy, The Bend in the River is worth seeking out as an anthropological exercise. There’s enough footage from the prior films to get you up to speed quickly, and none of the individual story arcs matter nearly as much as the larger sense that each season of human life is worthy of its own naturalistic exploration.

Christian Zilko
IndieWire

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is The Bend in the River?
The movie is 1hr 22min long.
What's The Bend in the River about?
Following and filming friends for nearly fifty-years. THE BEND IN THE RIVER is an exploration of the inexorable flow of aging and the unfinished project of living.