Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney called the film a "powerful character study" and said: "Like Zhao's earlier work, Nomadland is an unassuming film, its aptly meandering, unhurried non-narrative layering impressions rather than building a story with the standard markers. But the cumulative effect of its many quiet, seemingly inconsequential encounters and moments of solitary contemplation is a unique portrait of outsider existence."[11] Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film an "A–" and said that "director Chloé Zhao works magic with McDormand's face and the real world around it, delivering a profound rumination on the impulse to leave society in the dust."[12]