Bottoms
Orion Pictures | Release Date: August 25, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
39
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeNov 3, 2023
Think Mean Girls mashed into Lindsay Anderson’s If ... But with more sublimated high-feminist discourse. Just perfect. Read full review
100
ObserverLaura BabiakAug 22, 2023
Bottoms is a brilliantly bizarre movie that pushes boundaries and packs a punch—literally. Read full review
100
IndieWireRafael MotamayorMar 13, 2023
Bottoms is an ambitious sophomore feature from a director who is just getting started, one that can craft both a hilariously surreal teen sex comedy and marry it with one hell of an eye for action sequences. Read full review
93
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeAug 25, 2023
Seligman and Sennott, reteaming after Shiva Baby, clearly know the beats and tropes of the teen comedy while taking every opportunity to subvert the formula. Bottoms always opts for the weirdest choices and least expected outcomes. Read full review
91
The Film StageJake Kring-SchreifelsMar 14, 2023
What would a high school movie look like if its queer characters ended up as jock-slamming, hierarchy-upending heroes? Bottoms is this year’s righteously indignant, big-swing answer. Read full review
90
Film ThreatAlan NgAug 31, 2023
Bottoms falls right in my wheelhouse of comedy. Be offensive and don’t care about offending anyone. Bottoms goes after everyone without apology. It’s what comedy used to be; we’ve strayed so far off the path in the last ten years. There’s no place to play it safe in comedy. We need to return to this form of comedy oh so badly. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreAug 25, 2023
If anything, I wanted Bottoms to be even more anarchic. . . As is, it’s still a great — and audacious — time. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanMar 13, 2023
Bottoms is unlike any high-school comedy you’ve ever seen. It’s a satire of victimization, a satire of violence, and a satire of itself. It walks a tightrope between sensitivity and insanity (with a knowing bit of inanity), and it’s full of moments that are defiantly what we once used to call incorrect. Read full review
90
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 13, 2023
What Seligman, Sennott and Edebiri have given us is nothing less than a Heathers for this generation. It hits you, and it feels like a kiss. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleLina FisherAug 24, 2023
I could say Bottoms shines because it nods to nostalgia but feels totally of our time, or expertly inhabits the buddy comedy genre formula while providing its own absurdist twist – but most importantly, it is simply, joyfully, ridonkulous. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittAug 31, 2023
Add in a plethora of memorable lines ready-made to repeat with friends and a movie-stealing turn from Lynch, and Bottoms is the kind of go-for-broke, satisfying cult treat that can totally beat up your favorite teen classic. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonAug 29, 2023
Bottoms has a devil-may-care approach to its satire that might have made Jonathan Swift proud. Director Emma Seligman, who co-wrote the script with this film’s star, Rachel Sennott, are unconcerned about offending audiences. If you’ve seen their last film, the 2021 cringe comedy, “Shiva Baby,” you know what you’re in for here. Read full review
88
Washington PostOlivia McCormackAug 28, 2023
Writer-director Emma Seligman’s sophomore feature, Bottoms, is a raunchy exploration of queer expression and online culture, bursting with humor. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloAug 24, 2023
Co-written by Seligman and Sennott, Bottoms is fun and silly in all its chaos. The two have created a ridiculous world where the overdramatic high school drama is not always supposed to make sense, but that’s part of the appeal. Read full review
84
PolygonPetrana RadulovicAug 31, 2023
Bottoms strikes a balance: It’s a playful satire, and it’s also exactly the sort of film it’s making fun of. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubDrew GillisAug 25, 2023
If Bottoms doesn’t land every single punch, we can be happy that at least someone is out here swinging. Read full review
83
ColliderRoss BonaimeAug 24, 2023
It is a delightfully bizarre film that is always unexpected while being perfectly balanced by the two lead performances of Edebiri and Sennott. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyNov 10, 2023
Despite the performative feminism, and beyond the black eyes and broken noses, the girls still work naturally towards clique-defying female solidarity. It’s the small, sincere thought behind the joke: you don’t have to master the theory to know that women are stronger together. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 2, 2023
Bottoms is actually a bizarrely violent film, and its plot is always teetering on the brink of pure incoherence, but it’s always funny, thanks to the goofy and winning comic presences of Sennott and Edebiri. Read full review
80
EmpireSophie ButcherOct 30, 2023
An incredibly silly, sapphic, gloriously weird high-school satire. Bottoms’ ultra-knowing tone might be a struggle for some — but it’s hilariously rewarding. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredFrancisca TinocoSep 26, 2023
Bottoms is never afraid to have fun, even when it comes at the cost of a reasonable plot or political correctness. It's an hysterical teen movie featuring two of the best talents of this generation who have nailed the balance between the ridiculous and the important. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshAug 24, 2023
If it’s imperfect, or certain narrative turns are rocky, you forgive it because Bottoms is just so audacious, and most important, the jokes are nonstop. Perfectionism is a trap, anyway. Read full review
80
Paste MagazineAurora AmidonMar 14, 2023
With the help of Sennott, who co-wrote the script, Seligman squeezes every ounce of humor out of each of the film’s thoughtfully-crafted scenarios—for better or worse. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 11, 2023
Bottoms achieves what it sets out to do and, in the process, provides a multiplex-friendly indie movie with breakout potential. Read full review
75
Original-CinKaren GordonSep 1, 2023
Bottoms is absurd, ridiculous, often wildly inappropriate in the way of teen comedies and occasionally as exaggerated as a Looney Tunes cartoon. But everyone in the movie is giving it their all, taking the craziness seriously and clearly having fun. There are a lot of terrific performances. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 30, 2023
Not every joke lands, but with a brisk running time of 1 hour and 32 minutes, director/co-writer Seligman displays a keen sense of timing and a real awareness of how to make a point with edgy wit and then move on to the next target as we’re still admiring her willingness to go there, and there, and also there. Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottAug 28, 2023
It doesn’t talk down to its young audience or hold up its teenage characters’ perceived imperfections for ridicule. Rather, as Hughes’ movies were so good at doing, Bottoms meets its viewers on their level, connecting with them and laughing with them about the absurdity of the modern adolescent experience. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 24, 2023
In the end, all these young women want is a foothold on life, a little less humiliation and some physical intimacy. If that makes Bottoms snarky on the outside but conventionally heartfelt on the inside, well, that’s fine, actually. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleAug 23, 2023
Not all the jokes land but they do fly. Bottoms, a queer comedy with a chaotic beat, is here to break stuff — and that’s a very good thing. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithAug 23, 2023
The film’s unique blend of deadpan and absurdist humor, and its tendency to occasionally push the boundaries of good taste, shows that Emma Seligman is comfortable working on both ends of the comic spectrum. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonAug 22, 2023
Despite its outlandish conceits, it is grounded in sisterhood. As bloody as it is, the pain the girls dish out to each other is nothing compared to the trauma they’ve experienced. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenAug 22, 2023
Bottoms—which puts a queer spin on teen sex comedies like Revenge of the Nerds, American Pie, Superbad, and (the partially queer) Booksmart—is at its best when it is at its most anarchic. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJason BaileyMar 13, 2023
Once you get on this one’s wavelength, it’s wildly funny and delightfully subversive. Read full review
75
SlashfilmErin BradyMar 12, 2023
If there is anything that prevents Bottoms from being truly great, it's that it sometimes feels a lot more wild and unpredictable than it actually is. Read full review
70
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannSep 9, 2023
Bottoms nearly has it all and even where it falls short, it is still far bolder than much of anything released by major studios in the last few years. Read full review
70
The New York TimesElisabeth VincentelliAug 24, 2023
For most of its tight running time, Bottoms hovers on the cusp of greatness. It’s often funny but it also never delivers satisfying set pieces, and stops short of questioning — not to mention subverting — the warped high school stratification that remains one of America’s building blocks. Read full review
70
TheWrapTomris LafflyAug 21, 2023
Perhaps it’s not quite the teen movie to define a new generation, but it’s one that gets at something unique about female rage and drive, gifting its young viewers a reset button and a release outlet, however imperfect. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 17, 2023
As she did with Shiva Baby, Seligman shows a keen eye for her characters’ mortification, albeit without her previous picture’s precisely modulated discomfort. By design, Bottoms is a broader, more outrageous comedy, and unfortunately the jokes are not as cutting. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 5, 2023
Seligman and Sennott serve up a timely and bracing counter-punch and counter-narrative in the ongoing culture wars, a fun poke-in-the-eye at gay bashers and stereotypes that amuses almost as much as it transgresses. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 6, 2023
Even if the scattershot plotting doesn’t quite hold together, there’s a wayward energy to the picture and a barbed sense of mischief. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeMar 13, 2023
The jokes keep coming, but without a meaningful foundation — fleshing out the motivations of the group’s members would have helped — they start to wear thin. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 29, 2023
While the off-kilter film is a fine showcase for the personalities of two of our best emerging comedic stars, Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”) and Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”), the humor falls short of being very funny. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyAug 28, 2023
The experience of watching Bottoms is weighed down by the movie’s thin drama, hit-or-miss comedy, and merely functional direction—pictures of actors acting. Read full review
40
Little White LiesHannah StrongNov 3, 2023
Unfortunately, the cast is saddled with a half-baked script, which underdelivers on its promise of a queer, female fight club by seeming to forget that’s a crucial element of the story. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyNov 3, 2023
The script shuffles romantic complications around in a sub-Clueless manner, but it badly lacks a killer idea, unless bored teenage lesbians repeatedly punching each other (and then the opposing boys’ football team) is everything you could possibly want from a lowbrow comedy. Read full review
40
TimeStephanie ZacharekAug 25, 2023
Bottoms, though it presents itself as a sort of sideways heir to comedies like Heathers and But I’m a Cheerleader, simply runs its jokes into the ground. Read full review
More From This Movie

74 Critic Reviews

6.5 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL