Avatar: Fire and Ash
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: December 19, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 59 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
19
Negative:
5

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Travers TakePeter TraversDec 26, 2025
What was once riveting now feels rote. What once made us want more of the same now makes us eager for the shock of the new. Read full review
60
StatusBrian LowryDec 19, 2025
A 197-minute epic that piles on breathless rescues and battles in a manner whose ultimate goal seems to be exhaustion as an artistic choice, if not outright “Kneel before Zod” submission. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearDec 18, 2025
You may feel, with its immersive 3D set pieces and screensaver imagery blown up to IMAX proportions, that you’re entering a bold new world. But transportive is not the same as transcendent. The piles of ash here looks and sounds phenomenal. What you would not give to feel some actual fire burning behind all of this. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisDec 18, 2025
The fight sequences are models of spatial coherency and escalating tension, and they grab you wholly, turning a movie into a full-body workout. That feeling dissipates whenever the fighting stops, the story cranks back up and somebody calls someone else “bro,” which happens too often. Read full review
60
NMEMatt MaytumDec 17, 2025
The clarity, dynamism and sheer scale of the action is near enough unparalleled, and it’s hard to argue you don’t get your money’s worth. Still, Cameron is going to have to think outside the (Pandora’s) box and change the game for any future installments. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenDec 16, 2025
When the foot comes off the gas, the cracks become apparent. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyDec 16, 2025
Fire and Ash, I’m sure, will find its place in the canon. But that doesn’t excuse its flaws. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithDec 19, 2025
The third entry features visual effects that are no longer novel, which means the writing deficiencies are now impossible to overlook. Without a compelling story, what emerges is not a movie but . . . a ride. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 16, 2025
Cameron’s vision is no longer the future, but a nostalgia trip, a very expensive form of deja vu. Movie magic can take many forms, but rarely is it as calculated as this, confusing awe with stupor. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonDec 16, 2025
Basically, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is the same movie as “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the franchise’s prior installment. The only difference is that fire is the primary element, and the new villain looks like a gigantic, enraged chicken. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichDec 16, 2025
The crystal clarity of Russell Carpenter’s cinematography is often unnerving, as is the uncanny nature of Pandora’s computer-generated flora and fauna, which never truly seem alive and vital. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 16, 2025
Avatar: Fire and Ash will doubtless join its predecessors in the billion-dollar club. It can't miss. It follows the formula of the previous two films — stunning advancements in film technology coupled with mind-numbing plot, evidently a lucrative combo. Don't get me wrong, these movies look great, genuinely so. They're just so dumb. Read full review
45
The Daily BeastNick SchagerDec 16, 2025
To a greater extent than its franchise mates, Avatar: Fire and Ash is drunk on its own extravagance, unaware that it’s offering up nothing new that might justify its absurd Sturm und Drang. Read full review
42
The Film MavenKristen LopezDec 19, 2025
If you've been ride or die for this series since its inception then there's little that will change that. For those looking for a good time at the movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash offers some thrilling visuals but little else. The story is repetitive and unfocused, the characters dull and lacking depth. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeDec 16, 2025
Rarely has anything looked simultaneously so spectacular and so monotonous. It’s like being drowned to drunken death in a lake of curaçao. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 16, 2025
Avatar is as gigantically uninteresting and colossally impervious to criticism as ever: a vast, blank edifice that placidly repels objection. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyDec 16, 2025
Yes, the movie offers gargantuan-scale spectacle, imposing technological wizardry and virtually nonstop action involving over-qualified and mostly unrecognizable actors in motion-capture suits. But it’s easily the most repetitious entry in the big-screen series, with a been-there, bought-the-T-shirt fatigue that’s hard to ignore. Read full review
40
The TimesKevin MaherDec 16, 2025
It’s difficult to convey just how little dramatic urgency there is in a film that’s effectively a computer-generated diorama, one that’s filled with fantastical flora and fauna and mystical beings who are all dressed up with nowhere to go. Read full review
40
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiDec 16, 2025
The only way ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ could be more hypocritical, and taken less seriously, is if the characters also yelled “Hypocrisy sucks!” while sitting on Whoopee cushions. Read full review
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