He co-wrote the screenplay with fellow playwright Christopher Hampton on the basis of Zeller's 2012 play Le Père.

A French–British co-production, the film stars Anthony Hopkins as an octogenarian Welsh man living with dementia.

Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots and Mark Gatiss joined later that month, with filming beginning on 13 May.

The website's consensus reads: "Led by stellar performances and artfully helmed by writer-director Florian Zeller, The Father presents a devastatingly empathetic portrayal of dementia.

"[25] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 88 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

[27] Writing for Variety, Owen Gleiberman said "The Father does something that few movies about mental deterioration in old age have brought off in quite this way, or this fully.

"[28] For The Guardian, Benjamin Lee wrote of Hopkins's performance: "It's astounding, heartbreaking work, watching him try to rationally explain to himself and those around him what he's experiencing.

In some of the film's most quietly upsetting moments, his world has shifted yet again but he remains silent, knowing that any attempt to question what he's woken up to will only fall on deaf ears.

Hopkins runs the full gamut of emotions from fury to outrage to longing for his mother like a little child and never once does it feel like a constructed character bit, despite our association with him as an actor with a storied career.

Fronted by a stupendous performance from Anthony Hopkins as a proud Englishman in denial of his condition, this penetrating work marks an outstanding directorial debut by the play's French author Florian Zeller.

"[30] Writing for Indiewire, David Ehrlich said: "Zeller adapts his award-winning play of the same name with steely vision and remarkable confidence, as the writer-director makes use of the camera like he's been standing behind one for his entire life.

In Zeller's hands, what appears to be a conventional-seeming portrait of an unmoored old man as he rages against his daughter and caretaker slowly reveals itself to be the brilliant study of a mind at sea, and of the indescribable pain of watching someone drown.

"[31] Writing for The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis said The Father is "stupendously effective and profoundly upsetting" and described it as a "majestic depiction of things falling away".

It very quickly establishes itself as an intensely psychological drama, putting viewers in the mind of its main character and showing the ways he's frequently disorientated, confused, and untrusting of people he doesn't always recognize.

Consistently eerie and uncertain, The Father is also laced with deep empathy for its protagonist, a trait punctuated by a towering, heartbreaking performance from Hopkins.