The Holdovers (2023)

The Holdovers rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic

IMDb7.9/10· 247K votes

Rotten Tomatoes97%

Metacritic82%

TMDb7.6/10· 3K votes

With 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 7.9/10 on IMDb and 82/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been very positive.

About The Holdovers

A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.

Cast of The Holdovers

• 

  Paul Giamatti

  as Paul Hunham

• 

  Dominic Sessa

  as Angus Tully

• 

  Da'Vine Joy Randolph

  as Mary Lamb

• 

  Carrie Preston

  as Miss Lydia Crane

• 

  Brady Hepner

  as Teddy Kountze

• 

  Ian Dolley

  as Alex Ollerman

• 

  Jim Kaplan

  as Ye-Joon Park

• 

  Michael Provost

  as Jason Smith

• 

  Andrew Garman

  as Dr. Hardy Woodrup

• 

  Naheem Garcia

  as Danny

• 

  Stephen Thorne

  as Thomas Tully

• 

  Gillian Vigman

  as Judy Clotfelter

The Holdovers facts

Budget

$13M

Box office

$42.5M

Our take on The Holdovers

Alexander Payne's 2023 comedy-drama strands a curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school over Christmas break, tasked with minding the few students left behind. Slowly, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a bright, damaged troublemaker — and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam. What begins as reluctant duty becomes a tender study of three lonely people learning to lean on one another. Payne mixes wry humor with real melancholy and lets the characters, not plot, carry the film. It suits viewers who love character-driven, unhurried dramas about grief, connection and second chances, with warmth earned rather than declared.