Bad Santa
Dimension Films | Release Date: November 26, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
7
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Much like "School Of Rock," Bad Santa salvages a tired, paint-by-numbers formula by resisting it every step of the way, stubbornly refusing to stop its juvenile fun until the last possible moment. Read full review
90
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
As surreal as it is obscene, as clever as it is crude. It plays like some raw offspring of underground comix and the comedies of the 1920s. Read full review
90
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The movie is -- how can I say this? -- funny as hell. It's like an old Mad magazine "Scenes We'd Like to See" put together by someone on crystal meth, with a vicious streak, an existentialist streak and no mercy anywhere in his soul and only the tiniest flinch at the end, which is probably, sigh, the best way to end. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Suddenly, you're looking at life in his (Thornton's) jaundiced way and laughing with a sense of vicarious liberation, even when he says the most outrageous things -- to children, no less. And I daresay you can still recover your holiday spirit when you're through laughing. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
But Bad Santa does feature one last turn from the late John Ritter as a twittery department-store manager (his name, Mr. Chipeska, is a stroke of brilliance that I still can't quite put my finger on). Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
The foulest holiday movie I've ever seen -- and the funniest. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A demented, twisted, unreasonably funny work of comic kamikaze style, starring Billy Bob Thornton as Santa in a performance that's defiantly uncouth. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Won't appeal to everyone, of course, particularly those who blush easily. And parents who take children to see it deserve to have their heads examined. But for those who don't mind a little bile in their eggnog, it's the perfect antidote to all that prefab Christmas cheer. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
This is a filmmaker who instinctively knows that a shot of Santa sitting at a bar as Ricky Nelson sings Jingle Bells will be no-frills funny. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Gloriously funky in the good old meaning of the term. Its vulgarity may be offensive, but it's also pungent and real, and it fuels some ferocious humor. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's a film for those people -- and they are legion -- who recoil in horror from the very notion of Christmas cheer. If you're in that crowd, and you know who you are, you'll love it. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Happens to be extremely funny -- at times sidesplittingly so -- thanks to Zwigoff's way with raw irreverence and Thornton's perfectly pitched, ready-for-anything performance. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
It unapologetically exults in its characters' glorious imperfection. It's good to know that oddballs, outcasts and people who don't look like Barbie and Ken still have a place in American movies and that not everyone in Hollywood pays lip service to the nice and polite. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Takes all the Christmas season's bad vibes and converts them into an achingly funny and corrupt dark comedy. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
My kind of Christmas movie--profane, subversive, and swarming with scuzzballs. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Schickel
Not for everyone. The plot is full of holes, and its language is worse than it has to be. But it has some swell supporting performances and a lot of vulgar inventiveness, and best of all, it plugs into -- and electrifies -- the mostly unacknowledged grimness that lies just beneath our holiday cheer. Read full review
80
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Zwigoff doesn't hype up the gags, and his deliberately deadpan style gives even farfetched jokes an edge of reality. Read full review
80
EmpireAdam Smith
A delightfully obscene alternative to the usual Christmas tosh. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
No doubt about it: Bad Santa is blasphemous. But, to borrow a phrase from another famous hedonist, Homer Simpson, it’s also sacrilicious. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
If you've had it with all that feel-good holiday sludge, hook up with the combustibly nasty Bad Santa. It could become a Christmas perennial for Scrooges of all ages. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It has two modes: dark and darker, and dares to do some things with the Christmas motif that haven't been done since Norman Rene's "Reckless." Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
"Ghost World" director Terry Zwigoff, working with a depraved script by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, has fashioned the sickest -- and funniest -- black comedy in years. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleC.W. Nevius
A tasteless, vulgar, savage assault against everything that is good and decent in the Christmas season. I think you are going to like it. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
An unrepentantly rude, anti-seasonal dish of malice and mischief. Director Terry Zwigoff works from a story that originated with the Coen brothers and passed through at least four writers, including him...The results may leave you aghast or breathless with laughter, but you won't be neutral. Read full review
70
VarietyDennis Harvey
First-rate talent and a uniquely dyspeptic mood separate this effort from more routine, populist stabs at tasteless yukkage. Read full review
70
SlateDavid Edelstein
Billy Bob Thornton's performance is--there's no other word--beautiful. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Without question, not for the children. It is, however, just the cup of rancid black-comedy eggnog for anyone fed up with holiday cheer in all its manifestations. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
I wanted to believe in Bad Santa. At least half of the time I did.
50
Village VoiceDennis Lim
Bad Santa is a one-joke film; to his credit, Thornton embodies that joke with vicious, vaguely insane conviction. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
A determinedly raunchy holiday comedy about a libidinous, larcenous and perpetually soused St. Nick with a nonstop potty mouth. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Gets stuck in a rut. Hearing Santa say “f---” isn't nearly as funny the 50th time as it is the first 49. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Aspires to the devilish crudity and unfettered social commentary of South Park. But Zwigoff's direction lacks the exaggerated cartoonishness necessary. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Joel and Ethan Coen wrote the story, using the ancient gag of the toxic Santa as a vehicle for their patented brand of misanthropy; Zwigoff and company wring some laughs out of it, though the tone is uniformly mean and vulgar. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Perhaps for Zwigoff, directing someone else's script, this was just a job of work. If not, the talent who made "Crumb" and "Ghost World "has now made his first movie mistake. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
The screenplay just isn't funny: Most jokes fall flat and just lie there in a pool of their own sick. And while Zwigoff's deadpan pacing was perfect for the wry, sophisticated humor of "Ghost World," here it's a comedy killer; that extra beat after each new outrage is just long enough for viewers to realize just how sad and disturbing it all is. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Isn't up to much of anything besides pretending that swearwords and snot-nosed insults, served up by Santa with an almost institutional monotony, aren't just naughty. They're -- big joke! -- incorrect. Read full review
20
Film ThreatK.J. Doughton
A frozen pile of reindeer droppings. The cinematic equivalent to passing a kidney stone, Zwigoff’s unholy foray into “dark comedy” gives us a suicidal, sociopathic drunk slinging swear words with a ferocity that would make Tony Montana wince. Read full review
16
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
If you're addicted to Billy Bob Thornton's slovenly charm, and thrill to the prospect of watching him talk endlessly about his bodily functions and penchant for anal sex with obese women, this is your movie. If not, it's like 90 minutes in hell. Read full review
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