Critical response
Upon its release, I'm Still Here received overwhelming praise from the public, film critics, and the press; Torres's performance was particularly acclaimed. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 184 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Carried along by Fernanda Torres' superb performance, I'm Still Here poignantly explores a nation's upheaval through one family's search for answers." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Jessica Kiang of Variety praised the film and its dramatic charge: "Classical in form but radical in empathy, I'm Still Here arguably does not need the follow-up sections—one set in 1996 and the other in 2014—that somewhat alter the emotional rhythm. But on the other hand, these characters are so vivid that we don't want to leave them either". For Wendy Ide of Screen Daily, Salles "never over-labours the film's emotional beats, relying instead on Torres' magnificent, intricately layered performance to drive the picture"; she also praised Montenegro, "who has a brief but exceptionally powerful cameo here as the elderly Eunice".
Several international outlets applauded Torres's performance, with Collider considering it one of the best of the year and "more than deserving of an Oscar nomination". In her review for Deadline, Stephanie Bunbury calls the film a "celebration of Brazil" and praises Torres, writing that she "has an emotional delicacy as Eunice that conveys, through the smallest and subtlest signals, what it costs her to hold back her anxiety and anger for the sake of her family. It is a performance that should catapult her into the awards race, 25 years after her mother Fernanda Montenegro was Oscar-nominated for Salles' breakthrough feature, Central Station". David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter highlighted the relationship between Montenegro and Torres, writing, "What makes the connection even more poignant is that she appears as the elderly, infirm version of the protagonist". He called I'm Still Here "a gripping, profoundly touching film with a deep well of pathos. It's one of Salles' best". For IndieWire, Leila Latif called Torres's performance "as spectacular as her filmography would suggest, having marked herself out as one of the South American continent's greatest actors in roles in Foreign Land (also directed by Salles) and won a Best Actress Award in Love Me Forever or Never. Her Eunice possesses phenomenal strength and stoicism which make each moment of pain that peep through the chinks of her armor all the more moving". Latif also praised Torres's on-screen interaction with Selton Mello.
Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón named it one of his favorite films of 2024, saying, "Watching a Walter Salles film is to be embraced in generosity, is like experiencing a gravitational pull, both lifting and grounding us at the same time with an invisible yet undeniable force. With I'm Still Here, this effect is even more compelling. Many other filmmakers, including Nicole Holofcener and Chad Hartigan, also cited it as among their favorite films of 2024.
In 2025, Collider ranked it third on its list of the "10 Essential Movies of the 2020s So Far", with Eddie Possehl writing, "With the disease of misinformation and government corruption spreading across the real world, the story told within I'm Still Here is a vital watch for people of every age as society continues to evolve and degrade at the same time."
I'm Still Here was named one of the Top 5 International Films of 2024 by the National Board of Review and one of 50 Best Films of the year by British film magazine Sight & Sound. In July 2025, it ranked 253rd in the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times's list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century".
