With bold performances, a strong vision for the source material, and a wise decision to focus on this under-represented portion of this narrative, The Return makes for an effective character piece that proves these stories are not only timeless, they’re as timely as ever.

The Return looks rather cheap: there’s a real lack of pictorial beauty here, even if you can tell it was shot in a nice location. That wouldn’t be an issue if the prestige-television grit applied to this oft-told tale had a little more passion.

Ethan Vestby

The Film Stage

Stripping the narrative of its gods and monsters, and almost two-thirds of the chapters, is great but the vacuum isn’t filled with much more than his two magnetic leads and consistently sumptuous cinematography. The Return is gorgeous to behold, but there just isn’t enough there.

Radheyan Simonpillai

The Guardian