Bitter Christmas
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: TBA CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
AwardsWatchMartin TsaiMay 21, 2026
Ultimately, Bitter Christmas never reaches the crashing emotional clarity of Pain and Glory, whose self-interrogation cut far deeper. Still, there is something quietly heartening about watching Almodóvar return to familiar territory with renewed playfulness and formal confidence. Even when circling old obsessions — performance, desire, memory, self-mythology — he remains one of the few filmmakers capable of making self-examination feel simultaneously sumptuous and dangerous. Read full review
80
Screen RantAlex HarrisonMay 20, 2026
Almodóvar makes thrillingly clear that the moral cost of drawing on one's own life to make fiction is the true subject of this film. Everything else becomes richer through this meta lens. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 19, 2026
An elaborately nested reflection on creative license, story ownership and art imitating life imitating art, Bitter Christmas is so exhaustively Almodóvarian, the viewer occasionally has to fight their way into its circular hall of mirrors. For those who do, there’s much fun to be had here. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 19, 2026
Bitter Christmas finds the Spaniard at his most raw and introspective – looking inwards and not entirely enjoying what he finds. Read full review
80
The TimesEd PottonMay 19, 2026
The film is cooler emotionally than Almodóvar’s early work but full of wit and self-awareness. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 19, 2026
Bitter Christmas is neither the work of a filmmaker atoning for, nor justifying, their greatness so much as it’s the work of a filmmaker simply explaining how their greatness works. Read full review
70
The Irish TimesTara BradyMay 21, 2026
At times the film-within-a-film structure is busy and overcomplicated. Almodóvar gradually pulls the threads together into a sharp and unexpectedly brilliant punchline. If only he had let us in on the joke a little earlier. Read full review
70
Next Best PictureNadia DalimonteMay 21, 2026
Bitter Christmas falls into the category of Almodóvar films that feature the vibrant touchstones of his style, but lack the bite that makes you want to revisit the story and characters. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreMay 20, 2026
I would say that what Almodóvar pulls off in the end makes the rest of the film worthwhile, but only barely and only if you’re invested enough in his ongoing arc as an artist to find intriguing the idea of a self-lacerating late-career self-portrait about the nature of inspiration. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 19, 2026
Bitter Christmas feels like a tortured analysis construct, in which Almodóvar — normally the most generous of artists — is working things out in his own head rather than coaxing his audience in to share the experience. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 19, 2026
Bitter Christmas is so enjoyable to watch that you almost will yourself into believing that Almodóvar isn’t simply reworking, with certain beats that feel a little too familiar, some of his recent preoccupations. Read full review
67
The PlaylistRafaela Sales RossMay 20, 2026
Despite not being top-shelf Almodóvar, it remains the work of a director long settled into form and, as such, offers its fair share of delights. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 19, 2026
If you wanted to be mean about Pedro Almodóvar’s new film, you could call it complacent. On the other hand, if you wanted to be generous, you could call it a spry deconstruction of artistic complacency. In reality, it’s both. Read full review
60
Screen DailyJonathan HollandMay 19, 2026
Bitter Christmas remains a cinephile’s film – one whose exploration of emotions ultimately fails to translate into an emotional experience for the viewer. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 19, 2026
I confess that, for me, this movie doesn’t have the impact of his comparably modernist Parallel Mothers, but Almodóvar’s sensual, playful, melancholy films are always food for thought and feeling. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubRory DohertyMay 22, 2026
Bitter Christmas uncomfortably straddles its twin goals of complexity and amusement, too pithy to take seriously and too flat to be riotously entertained. Read full review
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