Battle of the Sexes
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: September 22, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 21, 2017
All this is dramatized expertly and with a lightness of touch in Simon Beaufoy’s screenplay and in the direction of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the team behind “Little Miss Sunshine.” Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 10, 2017
Just about everything about this film is winning and gratifying. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldSep 27, 2017
An enjoyably lighthearted crowd-pleaser with a serious message at its core. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerSep 21, 2017
The film is surprisingly timely: Today's fierce, revitalized misogyny makes the 1970s male chauvinism droll and quaint in comparison. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittSep 21, 2017
Battle of the Sexes is less an issues movie and more an entertaining history lesson, with Stone and Carell proving they're a winning match. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 20, 2017
Battle of the Sexes stands on its own as a finely tuned period piece, a vibrant comedy, an effective character study and, yep, an inspirational sports movie. Read full review
85
TheWrapInkoo KangSep 21, 2017
Handsome and moving if a bit cautious, “Battle” is full of smart complexities and sensational acting, and it deserves to be considered a serious awards contender. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 28, 2017
Stone is terrific, easy to cheer. She's feisty but a bit softer around the edges than King deserves. Another Oscar nomination is certain. Throw in Steve Carell's uncanny impersonation of Riggs and a stellar supporting cast and Battle of the Sexes has the makings of fine time capsule comedy, an extraordinary sports happening even by today's wired standards. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 21, 2017
The symbolic power of what happened there — one small step, one giant leap for womankind — is still the movie’s truest ace. Read full review
80
EmpireLiz BeardsworthNov 27, 2017
A light, funny, blissfully entertaining flick about heavy, sadly still relevant themes. Read full review
80
Total FilmKate StablesNov 20, 2017
Stone and Carell ace it in this smart biopic, stylishly recreating the champ-vs-clown clash of the tennis titans that electrified ’70s America. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 25, 2017
If Battle of the Sexes is unsurprising to a fault, it’s by no means a double fault. The movie is very entertaining. Read full review
80
Time OutAnna SmithSep 23, 2017
It’s a fun setup with a rousing finale that broadly compensates for a baggy middle section (at two hours, the film seems a little too long). Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 21, 2017
Enjoyable and entertaining. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 21, 2017
The performances in Battle of the Sexes, agile and perceptive, keep the game alive every minute. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Sep 18, 2017
A film based on a true story should have three things — strong characters, fierce conflict and a fresh angle. Battle of the Sexes serves up all of them. Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 12, 2017
Served up with star turns from Emma Stone and Steve Carell, Battle Of The Sexes slams a crowdpleaser across the net. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 2, 2017
The outcome is widely known, but the backstory proves boisterously entertaining — and incredibly well-suited to the current climate, as King was both fighting for her gender and exploring her sexuality in 1973, when the widely publicized face-off happened. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisSep 27, 2017
While sturdily constructed, Simon Beaufoy’s upbeat screenplay spells almost everything out in capital letters, with little nuance. It seldom trusts you to make your own judgments about the diverse cast of players in this chapter of pop-culture history. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 28, 2017
And by casting the hard-not-to-be-adorable Steve Carell as the self-promoting “male chauvinist pig” Riggs, they’ve produced a picture that’s alternately giddy and touching, with its heart coming from a budding romance and many of its laughs from the naked, reflexive sexism of the era. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 27, 2017
Battle of the Sexes is slick and wholly enjoyable, a pop provocation whose medicine goes down easy via outsize, engaging performances in the leads. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedSep 27, 2017
The movie, as relevant now as the story was then, lacks the same spark as live tennis, but the two stars are equally dynamic and unforgettable as the original players. You won’t be bored. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 23, 2017
Best not when it is preaching to us but, rather, in those moments when both King and Riggs drop their public faces and reveal the roiling underneath. Read full review
75
ConsequenceAllison ShoemakerSep 21, 2017
If Battle of the Sexes is more than a little slight in places, it more than makes up for its shortcomings through sheer entertainment value. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartSep 21, 2017
It’s a feel-good film with a somewhat curdled legacy: You could clip just about any piece of sexist dialogue here, label it 2017 and pass it off as plausible. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 21, 2017
A warm, earnestly entertaining film. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 21, 2017
Battle of the Sexes is not an overtly political movie; it's a blast about two tennis champions going over the top to make a point. Read full review
75
The Film StageJordan RuimySep 16, 2017
Although it may be lacking originality, Battle of the Sexes is finely-tuned storytelling that has been consummated by real pros. Read full review
75
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 10, 2017
The conflicts are obviously real, but there is something about the tone that’s just off through most of the picture. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensSep 23, 2017
Battle of the Sexes breaks little new ground as either a sports film or a lesbian romance, but it’s lively, funny, and, if you’re unlucky enough to be a feminist in 2017, vicariously wish-fulfilling. Read full review
70
Paste MagazineTim GriersonSep 22, 2017
Battle of the Sexes projects a breezy confidence—the movie’s a little too smooth and polished, eschewing the grit of real life—but Stone conveys her character’s growing anxieties with such care that King emerges as an immensely empathetic, resilient figure. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 21, 2017
A glib, enjoyable fictionalization of the 1973 exhibition tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 21, 2017
The film, directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (“Little Miss Sunshine”), might have come off as too breezy were it not for the leads: Emma Stone as King and Steve Carell as Riggs. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonSep 21, 2017
An extremely good-natured, upbeat recounting of the infamous Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King “man vs. woman” match of 1973. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 12, 2017
Though told in broad strokes, its version of the story deserves credit for never buying into the hype and surreal pageantry of the Astrodome showdown. But its lack of interest in tennis as a sport leaves the narrative—plastered with hot-button issues and character crises—with an empty center. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonSep 28, 2017
The movie is often clumsily scripted, and given to caricature, which Carell and Stone manage to transcend. The best, most telling dialogue seems to be archival — snippets of Gollum-like broadcaster Howard Cosell, his arm around his female co-commentator, oafishly telling her how pretty she is. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 21, 2017
The performances of Holly Hunter and Ron Silver had something Stone’s and Carell’s lack: true drive and animal energy, a sense of athletic competitors who mean business even when they’re kidding, or saying they are. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 13, 2017
It’s not a “bad” film, but Billie Jean King’s story could have been so much deeper. It’s a movie that doesn’t hit nearly as hard as she did. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 28, 2017
In addition to being a fast-starting and smartly cast sports drama built around picture-perfect period flourishes, it's also a movie with an undeniably timely message to deliver. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 12, 2017
It’s a decent tennis movie, solidly told and choreographed, but it’s in the film’s depiction of a same-sex romance between King and her hairdresser, played beautifully by Andrea Riseborough, where things truly comes alive. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 2, 2017
This is a film that admires — even awes at — Billie Jean King, but it doesn’t share her commitment to the game. If anything, it has more in common with Riggs than it should, moving with the sluggishness of a player who underestimates their opponent. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 30, 2017
It’s a surprisingly flat bio-pic of King’s life between 1972-73 with little attempt to make Riggs into anything more than a two-dimensional caricature/foil. Read full review
50
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 28, 2017
Battle of the Sexes, for all its failings, is still enjoyable to watch. Stone in particular is terrific, and Faris and Dayton make the smart choice to shoot the film with the kind of texture and camerawork that evokes movies from 1973. But as a sports movie, it’s unsatisfying — though that’s not exactly its fault. Read full review
50
Village VoiceApril WolfeSep 21, 2017
Stone and Carell ace both the warmth and the competitive camaraderie of that relationship. But when Billie and Bobby interact with anyone else in this story — love interests in particular — woo, boy, does Battle of the Sexes whiff the serve. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 18, 2017
The showdown in Houston, for instance, comes across as tacky rather than triumphant, its sexual politics smothered in salesmanship, and redeemed only by the ferocity of Stone’s demeanor as she puts away yet another smash. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GraySep 12, 2017
Battle of the Sexes sacrifices some of its innate appeal by making ham out of the supposed relics of a less enlightened era. Read full review
More From This Movie

73 Critic Reviews

6.3 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 63 Normal
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL