It had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, which was followed by a limited theatrical release in the United States on September 19, and its global premiere on Apple TV+ on October 3.[2] The film received generally positive reviews.
Premise
The film is based on the true story of a bus driver named Kevin McKay.[3] He had to navigate a bus carrying 22 children and their teachers to safety through the 2018 Camp Fire, which became the deadliest fire in California history.[3][4] The second teacher was excluded from the story, because she did not want to be included.[3]
Cast
McConaughey, Ferrera, and Greengrass at the premiere in Toronto
McConaughey's son, Levi, stars in the film but auditioned without using his last name.[11] The character of Sherry McKay is also played by McConaughey's real-life mother.[12]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 112 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Recreating a real-life disaster with terrifying authenticity, The Lost Bus ratchets up the tension while maintaining a humanist core thanks to Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera's effective performances."[17]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[18]
In a review for The Washington Post, Ty Burr described the film as an "effective human drama" while praising the visual effects. Burr, who awarded the movie 2.5 out of 4 stars, also wrote that the visual effects sometimes overpowered the characters.[12]Manohla Dargis of The New York Times gave the movie an unfavorable review, criticizing the dialogue as "formulaic".[19]
Damon Wise for Deadline writes that the film is much like Greengrass's other films in that it is about "ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances" and calls it a "trip in more than one sense of the word."[20]
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