Anomalisa
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 30, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
41
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireIan FreerFeb 22, 2016
Anomalisa has more heart, soul and pathos than 99.9 per cent of live-action movies. The best hotel-set love story since "Lost In Translation." Read full review
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 21, 2016
Anomalisa ends with a major decision and a minor triumph, the result of a one-night stand in Cincinnati. Sad, desperate? Maybe. But in the hands of Kaufman and Johnson, an extraordinary movie. Read full review
100
ConsequenceSarah KurchakJan 14, 2016
Leave it to writer, director, and professional expectation-defier Charlie Kaufman to make existential angst so completely delightful. Read full review
100
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 7, 2016
Filtered through Kaufman's searching mind and soulful brilliance, the result is a masterpiece. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 7, 2016
In a truly weird way Anomalisa provides an immersive experience that is no less compelling, though lots more authentic, than the one you get in a megahorror show like “The Revenant.” Once you’re in that puppet’s head it’s hard to get out. Read full review
100
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJan 7, 2016
It takes a few minutes to catch on, and it would be indiscrete to specify what it is, but once you figure out what’s really strange about it you have entered the solipsistic prison of a tormented mind. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 7, 2016
Even though it is a highly stylized, stop-motion animation film featuring puppet-like human characters, it is a pinpoint-accurate encapsulation of some of the most banal AND some of the most exhilarating moments virtually all of us have experienced at some point in our lives. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 7, 2016
Anomalisa may simply be a brilliant one-off, but it’s pointing a new direction for animation, if anyone cares to follow it. Read full review
100
SlateDana StevensJan 1, 2016
Whatever combination of practical effects and digital wizardry went into the technique that gave rise to Anomalisa’s otherworldly yet very human narrative universe, I hope it will be used to tell more stories, perhaps by this same storyteller. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 30, 2015
It's Chekhovian screwball, a perfect little tale of love (or thereabouts) in bloom among the weeds of an ordinary life. It feels like a classic already. Read full review
100
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonDec 29, 2015
Kaufman builds an emotional world we're nervous to enter, one we're already living in. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisDec 29, 2015
Mr. Kaufman’s gift for quotidian horror remains startling; he’s a whiz at minor miseries. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsAllen SalkinDec 28, 2015
The film’s thoughtful script and astounding craft portray a tragic inner psychological battle. Read full review
100
HitfixDrew McWeenySep 18, 2015
Anomalisa is an extraordinarily wise film about the reasons we turn to other people and the enormous difficulty of doing so. Read full review
100
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 12, 2015
Anomalisa might be bizarre, surreal and far out, but it always feels paradoxically real, grounded and deeply true. Read full review
100
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 12, 2015
Anomalisa is a movie with wit to burn (look out for the Sarah Brightman line and the meeting room pit) and enough incidental touches that the total achievement feels immense. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 12, 2015
This is a wonderfully odd consideration of those questions about love, pain, solitude and human connection we all ask; its emotional power creeps out from under the subtle humor and leaves a subcutaneous imprint that lingers long after the movie is over. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 12, 2015
Kaufman and Johnson tease out the possible causes and effects of Michael’s crisis with great imagination, tilting your sympathies so subtly as they do so that you don’t even feel it going on. Read full review
100
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 12, 2015
It’s both soaringly romantic and truly sad. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 12, 2015
Anomalisa’s existence is a minor miracle on multiple levels, from the Kickstarter campaign that funded it (the credits give “special thanks” to 1,070 names) to the oh-so-delicate way the film creeps up on you, transitioning from a low-key dark night of the soul into something warm, human and surprisingly tender. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 2, 2016
The wonder, the astonishment, is that these puppets are invested with a full range of human emotion. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloJan 1, 2016
Many will guess the resolution of Michael and Lisa’s affair well in advance. That scarcely matters, though, given how beautifully distinctive Anomalisa is from moment to moment. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyDec 23, 2015
It’s obvious that Kaufman has always seen the world differently from the rest of us. And even if it takes a little time to settle into Anomalisa’s disorienting, herky-jerky groove, Kaufman ends up bewitching us with his fresh take on the oldest and most hackneyed of cinematic themes: boy meets girl…and anxiety ensues. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnSep 12, 2015
A disorienting puzzle of a movie with many exhilarating pieces, Anomalisa nevertheless maintains a straightforward trajectory involving Michael's internal strife. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 7, 2016
Kaufman and King somehow give felt puppets an independence they might otherwise have lacked. How? The magic of movies, I guess. Or, more likely, the magic of Kaufman’s mind. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenJan 19, 2016
Thewlis voices Michael with weariness and despair until the character encounters Lisa. Leigh mixes eagerness...and an abashed vocal quality that emphasizes her character’s vulnerability. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 14, 2016
With spot-on vocal performances from Thewlis, Leigh and Tom Noonan, the film is nothing less than mesmerizing — and must viewing for serious cinephiles. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle SmithDec 30, 2015
There’s something strange and dreamlike and delicate and beautiful about Anomalisa, an animated film for grown-ups that takes a long while to make its point, but does so with a dark brilliance. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzDec 30, 2015
For all its visual audacity and honest feeling, Anomalisa is a modest, even slight work, aesthetically sealed off from the same reality it engages.... But there's so much beauty and sadness in it, and so many exquisitely conceived scenes (including an impromptu musical performance that ranks with Kaufman's greatest moments), that it would be miserly to underrate it. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 22, 2015
Singular and stunning. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 12, 2015
Kaufman and fellow director Duke Johnson strike the right balance here, deftly mixing spiritual crisis and despondency with moments of painful awkwardness and biting hilarity. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamMar 7, 2016
Charlie Kaufman shows us what it is to be human. Plus the best use of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ in the movies. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 21, 2016
Even with its flaws, the whole exercise makes for an affecting and effective film. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 11, 2016
Seldom, it is fair to say, does Kaufman just want to have fun, but as he lifts the spell of his gloom a surprising beauty breaks through. Read full review
80
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 12, 2015
Charlie Kaufman is back – with a wistful, resonant film, a bracing, wry, honest dose of cinematic melancholy. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJan 14, 2016
The film’s visual artistry works as an ideal counterbalance for Kaufman’s heady brand of middle-aged despair. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 14, 2016
At times unremarkable, at times weird, and at times tedious. At worst, it can be said that Kaufman has made a discussion-worthy animated feature. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 7, 2016
Whether or not Kaufman’s meticulously accumulated details add up to a grand unified conclusion, there’s no doubt he’s getting at something painfully familiar beneath his movie’s self-conscious artifice. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittJan 2, 2016
An artsy display put on by Kaufman and fellow co-director Duke Johnson that raises the level of the genre, though it sometimes tries to enjoy its individual oddity too much chronicling one night in a bored businessman’s life. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenDec 17, 2015
The film's highpoint is one of the most remarkably moving sex scenes in all of American cinema, and the irony of it involving bland puppets is hardly lost on Kaufman and Johnson. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 13, 2016
The filmmakers don’t endorse Michael’s solipsism, but we’re stuck with it anyway – the film is entirely from his point of view, save a lovely, pacifying final shot. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJan 2, 2016
Once the surprise of seeing something so miserable depicted with such wit and poetry wears off, you’re left with a nagging ugh, as well as the feeling that this emotional/psychological syndrome isn’t nearly as universal as Kaufman thinks it is. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 28, 2015
Once you start reckoning with Anomalisa’s obsession with self-absorption, the novelty of this one-man pity party begins to wear off. A little puppet pain goes a long way. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJan 23, 2016
Unlike David Foster Wallace in “End of the Tour,” a masterful look at depression, Stone’s just a self-centered, unaware bore. He doesn’t merit attention from the kindly, cheerful, anxious Lisa – or from us. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 21, 2016
Yes, the filmmaker and co-director Duke Johnson laboured for years over this project, and their set design is often astonishing. But that doesn’t mean the film is a masterpiece, or even half a masterpiece. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 20, 2016
Alternately daring and dull, inventively animated, intimate and yet impersonal, it’s challenging enough to turn off most. Read full review
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