A pub landlord, TJ Bannatyne, in a previously thriving mining community in County Durham struggles to hold on to his pub and keep it as the one remaining public space people can meet in the town. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed there but Bannatyne strikes up a friendship with one of the refugees, Yara. “This is 87 year-old filmmaker Ken Loach’s latest and (according to Loach) final motion picture, and it feels like a summation. It’s as engrossing, thoughtful, heartfelt, angry, hopeful, and altogether valuable as his best work. If it is indeed Loach’s farewell, it’s one hell of a fine note to go out on. The entire exercise often plays like a documentary record of actual events for which a camera happened to be present. You truly feel as if you’re getting a slice of life. Often in Loach’s films it’s a bitter slice. That’s not the case with The Old Oak, a drama that has many troubling or devastating moments but barrels through them, and lets the characters emerge with shreds of hope for a better future.”–RogerEbert.com