Wendy Ide of The Times described the film as "Leigh at his confident best" and "a disarmingly humane work" and describes "Mike Leigh shows admirable restraint: there are no manufactured crescendos, just a melancholy refrain that builds to its raw realisation in an achingly sad final shot." Xan Brooks of The Guardian described Another Year as "a rare treat",and Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent described the film as "an acutely well-observed study of needy and unhappy people desperately trying to make sense of their lives."