Beautiful Boy
Amazon Studios | Release Date: October 12, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 45 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
16
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Arizona RepublicSamantha IncorvaiaOct 18, 2018
Director Felix Van Groeningen unflinchingly depicts the struggles and hopes of a family affected by drug addiction in a powerfully honest movie with gut-wrenching acting. Read full review
85
Vanity FairRichard LawsonOct 13, 2018
Trite as it may sound, we gradually accept that the beautiful boy of the title is not some innocent child, lost to the past, but rather the real and imperfect young man hunched before us. It’s Chalamet’s great accomplishment, and the film’s, that we feel that so keenly. Read full review
85
TheWrapSteve PondSep 21, 2018
Beautiful Boy is family calamity writ large, a harrowing and horrifying (and yes, overly-long) exploration of the depths of addiction. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinJan 14, 2019
A based-on-fact family drama whose truths may hit too hard for some, but are worth suffering if only to witness Timothée Chalamet’s performance. Read full review
80
Film ThreatBrian ThompsonOct 17, 2018
The crux of the story rests on the relationship between David and Nic, and Carell and Chalamet truly bring the characters to life with their raw, humanistic performances indicative of the open wounds displayed onscreen. The film nimbly captures the bitter animosity that only arises amongst those whom we love most. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 13, 2018
Parents will feel heard by this movie in a way that few other films have tried. Everyone else should go for the kid, who's a rocket taking off. You want to be able to say you were there when it happened. Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 8, 2018
Strong, committed performances and the upsetting ring of reality anchor a highly-personal film which cycles through addiction, relapse and rehab in an episodic way, each high as inevitable as the low which follows. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 8, 2018
Beautiful Boy, made by the Belgian director Felix Van Groeningen (“The Broken Circle Breakdown”), from a script by Luke Davies, is scrupulous and tenderly wounding — a drama that seizes and holds you. Read full review
78
IGNWilliam BibbianiOct 11, 2018
It may not be a great movie, but Timotheé Chalamet delivers a performance so vibrant that it almost rubs off on everything else, and he’s matched in every scene by Steve Carell, Maura Tierney and Amy Ryan. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 19, 2018
Chalamet is asked to hit some big notes in this performance, but we never see him acting. That’s true greatness in the making. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedOct 16, 2018
Carell delivers a performance both tender and tough. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Oct 11, 2018
For as much as Van Groeningen may have pulled from both of his mirrored source materials, for as deep as Chalamet digs into his character’s skirmish with own urges, Beautiful Boy holds us outside of his struggle. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 8, 2018
Beautiful Boy keeps you strung on that line for nearly all of its run time, and sometimes it feels less like a movie than an endurance test — one that’s lovingly, meticulously made but almost too much like real life: an impressionistic series of highs and lows, relapses and recoveries, without the necessary anchor of a cohesive arc. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnSep 8, 2018
Chalamet, a heartthrob unafraid to tackle unglamorous material, so embodies the tragic struggles of a drug-addled young man it’s a wonder he made it through the production, while Carell’s melancholic eyes absorb every detail. It’s a haunting two-hander that allows their talent to tower over everything else. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 19, 2018
A test of an actor is playing someone who’s split in so many ways that he moves forward while looking backwards and vice versa, and Chalamet is already a master. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 11, 2018
Chalamet is so good it’s worth seeing Beautiful Boy for his work alone. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 11, 2018
It’s a tough, achingly tender film that refuses to trade in false hopes or cheap sentiment. That truth is what makes Beautiful Boy hard to take and impossible to forget. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyChuck WilsonOct 11, 2018
The imperfect yet affecting new film Beautiful Boy, based on memoirs by the real-life Nic and David, examines addiction and its effects on one family. But it’s also a meditation on memory and the difficulty of reconciling the happiness of the past with a present that’s become too sad to bear. Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonOct 10, 2018
Beautiful Boy is a beautifully made and complex rendering of a father and son’s relationship that ends with too little hope to fit into people’s “inspirational movie” box. But at its best, it’s a strong rendering of both that horror and the frayed rays of hope that sometimes break through. It’s not easy to watch, but it is, in its own way, still beautiful. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 13, 2018
The detachment at work in Beautiful Boy suggests an attempt to speak clearly and truthfully, to resist the clichés of the addiction drama while acknowledging that those clichés can hardly be rewritten. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerOct 24, 2018
That may be Beautiful Boy's biggest problem: That it's too emotional. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJason BaileySep 8, 2018
By working in such a deliberately muted key, the emotional payoffs we’re conditioned to require from a story like this never quite arrive, and Van Groeningen never finds a workable substitute for them. Read full review
65
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 12, 2018
Van Groeningen isn’t too curious about what got Nic into drugs, nor how he finally pulled out of the spiral. Beautiful Boy largely exists in between those two stories and ends up feeling like a limited, grueling experience. Read full review
65
Film Journal InternationalSimi HorwitzOct 11, 2018
The performances in Beautiful Boy are superb, and overall this intense father-son drama, helmed by Belgian directorFelix Van Groeningen (The Broken Circle Breakdown), has the ring of authenticity. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 18, 2018
Although the movie features strong performances and contains some individually potent scenes, the film’s style keeps the viewer at arm’s length, limiting the story’s overall power and emotional resonance. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 18, 2018
It’s an earnest and compassionate treatment of a story that is, by necessity, grueling as hell. It’s graced with sincere performances by Steve Carell (as David) and Timothée Chalamet (as Nic) that strive to steer clear of Actorly Moments. And there are mysteries here — of parenting, of human experience — that director Felix Van Groeningen looks at sharply before looking away. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 17, 2018
A lot of Beautiful Boy is necessarily hard to take, though the script softens the roughest of Nic’s travails. Is this why the movie’s anguish feels more indicated than inhabited? Still: You can’t fault the performers much. Or Chalamet, at all. Read full review
63
The Associated PressLindsey BahrOct 11, 2018
A film like this, as authentic and raw as it is, should probably leave audiences in a puddle and not exiting the theater wondering why they’re not. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichSep 18, 2018
Felix Van Groeningen commendably sustains the story's profound sense of irresolution: abuse-rehab-relapse, abuse-rehab-relapse, abuse-rehab-relapse—an endless cycle of teeth-gritted optimism at best, soul-deadening dashed hopes at worst. Read full review
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