Book Club: The Next Chapter
Focus Features | Release Date: May 12, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
17
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
ColliderMaggie LovittMay 8, 2023
Book Club: The Next Chapter is a raucously funny movie that will leave audiences ready to grab their gal pals and set off on an adventure to Italy. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedMay 12, 2023
The four stars deserve better material, but even they seem to enjoy themselves (and each other). Call Book Club: The Next Chapter the rare sequel that looks like an all-expense-paid vacation. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 8, 2023
Book Club was, at best, a pleasant diversion. But Book Club: The Next Chapter is something more. It’s a movie that proves that it’s possible to make an entertaining, full-length picture with practically no story. Read full review
70
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeJun 20, 2023
The wisecracks could be wiser, admittedly, but there’s nothing terribly wrong with this airy, utterly innocuous, still charming Mother’s Day treat. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMay 10, 2023
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Book Club: The Next Chapter was not only watchable but occasionally amusing. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshMay 10, 2023
It may be treacly and unrealistic, but “Book Club: The Next Chapter” has heart and soul, and it’s as sweet and quaffable as an Aperol spritz on a hot day. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineGregory NussenMay 7, 2023
The film is devoid of serious conflict, yet it hits with unexpected feeling. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiMay 12, 2023
The Book Club sequel will make you feel as though you’re reuniting with old friends for some wine and life lessons, and that’s enough. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'HaraMay 10, 2023
This is silly and sentimental, but it’s also basically well-meaning and inoffensive. Best watched after quite a few grappas, or with your sprightly grandmother. Read full review
58
Original-CinJim SlotekMay 10, 2023
To be clear, Book Club: The Next Chapter is not a good movie by any standards except for its appeal to audiences old enough to fondly remember every cast member in their prime (I’m raising my hand here). Anyone born after Murphy Brown will see a predictable, forgettable series of non-adventures. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 10, 2023
Even amid the corny jokes, awkward segues, forced conflicts and predictable resolutions, Bergen and Giannini manage to develop a low-simmer chemistry between the insults. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comNell MinowMay 10, 2023
Four brilliant, accomplished, gorgeous female actors play four friends who take a bachelorette trip to Italy in this dumb, dull, dud of a waste of their time and ours. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 8, 2023
It’s all quite wispy and anecdotal, which wouldn’t be a bad thing if Bill Holderman, the director of these films, and Erin Simms, his co-screenwriter and producer, had squeezed more texture into the anecdotes. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenMay 8, 2023
Signed, sealed and delivered, Book Club: The Next Chapter is an unabashed love letter to four great movie stars. As a vehicle for their talents, it’s less of a sure thing. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Amil NiaziMay 8, 2023
The best thing about Book Club: The Next Chapter is just seeing these remarkable actresses do what they do best. I hope Hollywood can make better use of them in the future. Read full review
42
IndieWireKate ErblandMay 8, 2023
Blindingly overlit, incoherently edited, and rife with baffling plot contrivances, the disappointing “Book Club: The Next Chapter” still manages to maintain the heart of its original story, but that only seems to be thanks to the chemistry of its central foursome. Read full review
40
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 17, 2023
Book Club’s four stars—and others like them—deserve material that’s specific, clever, surprising in some way. These plug-and-play movies have lost much of their charm at this point, feeling more like a slightly degrading duty than any kind of demographic triumph. Which may be overthinking it. But shouldn’t a movie about a book club feel at least a little bit literate? Read full review
40
Screen DailyNikki BaughanMay 12, 2023
Bright, colourful and relentlessly frothy, Book Club: The Final Chapter is not so much a film as a series of inspirational posters and Italian postcards stitched haphazardly together. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 12, 2023
So glibly controlled is the entire cruise, you wonder if it’s without a boatman, gliding on tracks underwater. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisMay 11, 2023
While the first film was nothing special – it often felt like a packaged product, in the worst Nancy Meyers sort of way – it still had some snap-crackle-and-pop energy now and then. This sequel, however, plays like soggy cereal. Read full review
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMay 11, 2023
Their film is so stuffed with incident – all of it preposterous, and occasionally insulting to the intelligence of its central quartet – that it sours what could (and should) have been a joyful celebration of desire and indulgence at any age. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMay 10, 2023
One of the more enjoyable dreadful films of the season. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 8, 2023
The film is smothered with a syrup of condescension. Read full review
40
TheWrapTomris LafflyMay 8, 2023
Perhaps it was enough for “Book Club” to merely exist as an act of rebellion against the stubbornly young-skewing studio fare. But this follow-up needed to give us more, something along the lines of a sharper film deserving of the earned legacies of Fonda, Keaton, Bergen and Steenburgen. Read full review
39
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerMay 10, 2023
In its broadest outlines, Book Club: The Next Chapter is a harmless, mildly farcical travelogue for fans of the central actresses, as well as those casually interested in briefly recognizing Andy Garcia, Don Johnson and Craig T. Nelson. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 8, 2023
Our core quartet are a well-preserved and still charming lot, with each giving a glimpse of their comic specialties. But like that spring fling, “80 for Brady,” the material here just isn’t up to the legends being paid to perform it. Read full review
25
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMay 15, 2023
It’s a “Dumb and Glummer” of a sequel that confuses the worst punchlines ever for Prosecco fizz, when the groaner jokes go down like lukewarm vodka. Read full review
20
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeMay 15, 2023
If anything, the writing in this chocolate-box travelogue of a sequel is even lazier than that of the first film, with much cackling innuendo and sparkly narcissism, a couple of clumsily engineered long-distance domestic crises and interminable heartfelt speeches that made me cringe so hard I nearly dislocated my spine. Read full review
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