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Never Rarely Sometimes Always · reception & legacy

2020 · Eliza Hittman

How Never Rarely Sometimes Always has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlin and hit US theaters in March 2020 — days before COVID shut everything down, making it the poster child for great films swallowed by the pandemic. After Roe fell in 2022 it was re-read as prophetic, and it now regularly tops lists of essential films about abortion access.

What's debated

The perennial fight is over its bleakness — detractors say nearly every man onscreen is a threat and call it miserabilist, while defenders argue that's precisely the point of view the film is documenting.

Its footprint

The title itself is the film's signature: it's the four answer options from a clinic intake questionnaire, and the single unbroken scene built around those words became one of the most talked-about sequences of 2020 — instant shorthand in any conversation about abortion on film, alongside 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Happening.

Where it stands

A canon climber and Letterboxd favourite — a fixture of best-of-2020 lists whose Oscar shutout (especially for Sidney Flanigan) is still cited as one of that season's great snubs.

★ Did you know? Star Sidney Flanigan had never acted before — Eliza Hittman first spotted her as a 14-year-old in Buffalo while working on a documentary project, followed her for years on social media, then cast her in the lead; her onscreen mother is played by musician Sharon Van Etten.

Named by the director

Influences Eliza Hittman has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.