★★★★ “A powerful performance piece for Tessa Thompson and Lily James" - news.com.au

Ollie (Tessa Thompson) is barely getting by in Little Woods, an economically depressed fracking boomtown in North Dakota. She has left her days of illegally running prescription pills over the Canadian border behind, eyeing a potential new job that would finally break her out of the small town. But when her mother dies, she is reunited with her estranged sister Deb (Lily James), who faces a mounting crisis: the combined effect of an unplanned pregnancy and a deadbeat ex (James Badge Dale). The two find they have one week to settle the mortgage on their mother’s house or face foreclosure. As both bills and pressure mount, Ollie faces a choice: whether to return to a way of life she thought she’d left behind for just one more score, or to leave it all behind.

Writer-director Nia DaCosta’s debut is an emotionally charged small-town thriller that weaves themes of economic downturn and the opioid crisis into its intimate story of two sisters trying to get by. An unvarnished film anchored by an authentically drawn sibling bond, LITTLE WOODS speaks to both the biggest and smallest elements of the working-class struggle in rural America. 

★★★★ - "Tessa Thompson and Lily James shine in compelling drama" - Stuff.co.nz

★★★★ - "Gritty and moving" "A must for lovers of 'Winter's Bone' or 'Frozen River'" - NZ Herald

★★★★ - "Visually striking" - Flicks NZ

★★★★ "A stunning, deep and thoughtful portrait of two marginalised women in America forgotten by city folk and the political class.” - News.com.au

★★★★ "The ambience is new and precisely evoked as a world of cruel contrasts." - Sydney Morning Herald

"Little Woods is very personal and very touching" - Observer

"DaCosta's film is hauntingly nostalgic for a world gone by" - Film Inquiry

"Tessa Thompson (Thor: Ragnarok) and Lily James are terrific...in this gripping backwoods thriller" - NZIFF

3.5/4 stars "Powerful and essential" - Observer

★★★★ - Black Girl Nerds
★★★★ - CC2K