# The Long Day Closes
**The Long Day Closes** is a 1992 British autobiographical drama film written and directed by Terence Davies, following an eleven-year-old boy named Bud growing up in working-class, Catholic Liverpool in 1955 and 1956, where the local cinema, popular song, and family warmth offer escape from school, bullying, and religious dread.[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/379888e8-c193-5d38-b9b1-e01431b2cdbf/the-long-day-closes) • [2](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-long-day-closes-1992-online) It was Davies's second autobiographical feature, after *[Distant Voices, Still Lives](https://www.edgepedia.org/distant-voices-still-lives)* (1988), and it competed for the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor) at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writer | Terence Davies, his final planned autobiographical film[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/379888e8-c193-5d38-b9b1-e01431b2cdbf/the-long-day-closes) • [4](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2026/04/the-elusive-moment-of-thought/) |
| Setting | Working-class Liverpool, 1955–1956, seen through the eyes of eleven-year-old Bud[5](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-long-day-closes) |
| Lead cast | Leigh McCormack (Bud), Marjorie Yates (mother), Anthony Watson, Nicholas Lamont, Ayse Owens[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/pdf/2022-05-09-long-day-closes.pdf) |
| Production | Film Four International in association with British Film Institute Production; cinematography by Michael Coulter[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/pdf/2022-05-09-long-day-closes.pdf) |
| Running time | 85 minutes per the BFI; listed as 1h 24m by Rotten Tomatoes[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/379888e8-c193-5d38-b9b1-e01431b2cdbf/the-long-day-closes) • [7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/long_day_closes) |
| Cannes | Nominated for the Palme d'Or in 1992; Bille August's *[The Best Intentions](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-best-intentions)* won[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes) |
| Critical scores | Metascore 85 (Universal Acclaim, 15 reviews); 82% on the Tomatometer from 22 reviews[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-long-day-closes/) • [7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/long_day_closes) |
## Spoilers
### Story and structure
The film has almost no conventional plot. Its protagonist, Bud (Leigh McCormack), lives with his widowed mother (Marjorie Yates) and three older siblings in a terraced house, moves from a primary school run by nuns to an all-boys secondary school with stern teachers and bullies, attends church with his mother, and sits transfixed at the local picture house.[5](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-long-day-closes) • [3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes) The events are drawn from Davies's own childhood: the period compresses his life in Liverpool between the ages of 7 and 11 into the two years 1955 and 1956.[4](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2026/04/the-elusive-moment-of-thought/)
**A mosaic rather than a narrative.** Like *Distant Voices, Still Lives*, the film is composed of a mosaic-like assemblage of memories rather than a linear story, but it narrows the focus to Davies's own recollections over a much shorter span.[9](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/13163/1/JAMES%20BALLANDS%27S%20PHD%20THESIS%20PDF.pdf) The menacing father who dominated the earlier film is gone; the antagonists that remain are peripheral figures such as the schoolmaster Mr. Nicholls, a nurse hunting head lice, and schoolyard bullies.[10](https://www.sandiegoreader.com/movies/long-day-closes/) Underneath the warmth, the film carries quieter themes that are never spoken in the dialogue: Bud's dawning awareness that he is different, associated with exclusion and religious guilt, and the fear of death.[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes) When a bare-chested builder he has been watching from an upstairs window winks at him, Bud's face registers desire, shame, and confusion.[9](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/13163/1/JAMES%20BALLANDS%27S%20PHD%20THESIS%20PDF.pdf)
## Sound and image
The film is as much a sound collage as a visual one. Its soundtrack weaves together 1950s songs, radio, and movie clips, including [Nat King Cole](https://www.edgepedia.org/nat-king-cole)'s rendition of "Stardust" (the first song heard), [Debbie Reynolds](https://www.edgepedia.org/debbie-reynolds), the Platters, dialogue from *The Magnificent Ambersons*, and Mahler's Tenth Symphony.[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes) • [5](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-long-day-closes) The title itself comes from Sir Arthur Sullivan's Victorian part-song "The Long Day Closes," which plays over the film's final images.[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/sound-fury-david-thomson-long-day-closes)
Visually, the film is known for its stillness and light. A famous lengthy shot holds on the hall carpet while patterns of changing light play across it.[12](https://brightlightsfilm.com/liverpool-lullaby-on-terence-davies-of-time-and-the-city/?noamp=mobile) Near the end, an overhead, space-dissolving tracking shot moves between the movie house, the church, and the school, setting up an equation between art, religion, and education.[10](https://www.sandiegoreader.com/movies/long-day-closes/) The closing image is a three-minute take of a full moon gradually vanishing behind clouds.[13](https://emanuellevy.com/review/long-day-closes-the-cast/) Cinematographer Michael Coulter said that Davies "had already made the film in his head (...) and we immortalized it."[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes)
## Production and release
Funding for the film came out of the distinctively British art-film milieu of the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period when the BFI's production board and Channel Four, via Film Four International, backed projects that held little hope of commercial return yet carried strong cultural aspirations.[14](https://sightlines.media/film/49956/the-long-day-closes-1992) Olivia Stewart produced, with Angela Topping as executive in charge of production, and the full credits run in the opening titles, in keeping with the 1950s setting.[6](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/pdf/2022-05-09-long-day-closes.pdf) • [15](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104753) In the United States it was distributed by [Sony Pictures Classics](https://www.edgepedia.org/sony-pictures-classics) and grossed $21.7K.[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/long_day_closes) It was not released on European DVD until 2008, and later received a Criterion Collection edition.[3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes)
## Reception
Critical response was strongly positive. Metacritic recorded a Metascore of 85 based on 15 reviews, categorized as Universal Acclaim, with 11 positive and 4 mixed and no negative reviews.[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-long-day-closes/) Rotten Tomatoes shows 82% from 22 critics and 76% from more than 250 audience ratings.[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/long_day_closes) [Individual](https://www.edgepedia.org/individual) critics were emphatic: Jonathan Rosenbaum of the *Chicago Reader* called it "a masterpiece," and J. Hoberman described it as Davies's distilled recollection of himself at eleven, a seemingly friendless child transfixed by the cinema.[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/long_day_closes) Not all responses were unqualified: James Berardinelli called it "the visual equivalent of a verse or a poem: beautiful images, but no narrative," and an *Empire* review found the overall mood heavy and glum despite Davies's description of the period as the best years of his life.[8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-long-day-closes/) Scholarly criticism has also questioned the film's celebration of working-class ritual as "sentimental nostalgia."[9](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/13163/1/JAMES%20BALLANDS%27S%20PHD%20THESIS%20PDF.pdf)
## Place in Davies's career
Davies had already treated his childhood in the black-and-white shorts of *The Terence Davies Trilogy* (1976–1983) and in *Distant Voices, Still Lives* (1988), which drew on his violent father, his close bond with his mother, and his struggles with Roman Catholic belief and his homosexuality.[12](https://brightlightsfilm.com/liverpool-lullaby-on-terence-davies-of-time-and-the-city/?noamp=mobile) *The Long Day Closes* is by comparison the sunniest installment of this autobiographical project, portraying a halcyon period after the father's abuse, though with the seeds of later torment already present.[9](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/13163/1/JAMES%20BALLANDS%27S%20PHD%20THESIS%20PDF.pdf) • [3](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes) Davies stated that it was the last autobiographical film he intended to make; his completed films in the quarter-century that followed were all literary adaptations, beginning with *The Neon Bible* (1995).[4](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2026/04/the-elusive-moment-of-thought/) • [16](https://www.the-tls.com/arts/film/liverpool-to-amherst) He died in 2023 at the age of 77, and the film has since been regularly cited among the great films about childhood and moviegoing.[17](https://apnews.com/article/d1c6cf1d5ac495ec7af2015b08b6e043) • [14](https://sightlines.media/film/49956/the-long-day-closes-1992)
## References
1. [The Long Day Closes (1992), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/379888e8-c193-5d38-b9b1-e01431b2cdbf/the-long-day-closes)
2. [Watch The Long Day Closes online, BFI Player](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-long-day-closes-1992-online)
3. [Costing No Less Than Heaven: Terence Davies' "The Long Day Closes", RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/terence-davies-the-long-day-closes)
4. [The Elusive Moment of Thought, Jonathan Rosenbaum](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2026/04/the-elusive-moment-of-thought/)
5. [The Long Day Closes, The New Yorker (Richard Brody, 2022)](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-long-day-closes)
6. [The Long Day Closes credits, BFI press sheet](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/pdf/2022-05-09-long-day-closes.pdf)
7. [The Long Day Closes, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/long_day_closes)
8. [The Long Day Closes Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-long-day-closes/)
9. [James Ballands, PhD thesis on Terence Davies, White Rose eTheses](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/13163/1/JAMES%20BALLANDS%27S%20PHD%20THESIS%20PDF.pdf)
10. [Long Day Closes, San Diego Reader (Duncan Shepherd)](https://www.sandiegoreader.com/movies/long-day-closes/)
11. [Sound and the fury: David Thomson on The Long Day Closes, Sight and Sound](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/sound-fury-david-thomson-long-day-closes)
12. [Liverpool Lullaby: On Terence Davies' Of Time and the City, Bright Lights Film Journal](https://brightlightsfilm.com/liverpool-lullaby-on-terence-davies-of-time-and-the-city/?noamp=mobile)
13. [Long Day Closes, The (1992), Emanuel Levy](https://emanuellevy.com/review/long-day-closes-the-cast/)
14. [The Long Day Closes (1992), Sightlines](https://sightlines.media/film/49956/the-long-day-closes-1992)
15. [The Long Day Closes (1992), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104753)
16. [Liverpool to Amherst, The Times Literary Supplement](https://www.the-tls.com/arts/film/liverpool-to-amherst)
17. [Terence Davies, filmmaker of the lyrical 'Distant Voices, Still Lives,' dies at the age of 77, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/d1c6cf1d5ac495ec7af2015b08b6e043)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Coming-of-age films › Coming-of-age films released before 2000*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license