Boy Erased
Focus Features | Release Date: November 2, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
39
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedNov 5, 2018
The details in every scene and the polish and precision of a perfect cast make Boy Erased one of the finest and most unforgettable films of the year. Read full review
95
Film ThreatTiffany TchobanianOct 17, 2018
Boy Erased is a poignant family drama that explores the importance of unconditional love and acceptance of oneself and each other. Edgerton solidifies his triple-threat status, artfully and intelligently crafting a film that resonates with viewers and facilitates much-needed conversation during these trying times. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 2, 2018
It deserves praise not as a polemic but as a richly humanistic, emotionally searing drama that sticks in the memory. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 10, 2018
A strong and steady drama from writer-director-actor Joel Edgerton, featuring yet another effective and authentic performance by Lucas Hedges as a teenager in crisis. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 1, 2018
The 21-year-old actor holds his own in the emotional project opposite a couple of heavyweights, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. Just as deft in his work is writer/director/co-star Joel Edgerton, who's crafted a touching look at the darker sides of evangelical belief and parental judgment. Read full review
83
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerNov 1, 2018
Boy Erased finds its best stuff when it matches the unabashed earnestness of Jared, and of Hedges’ performance. The film isn’t so much preaching to the converted as begging the ones who aren’t yet to finally come over and stand on the right side of history. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 14, 2018
Lucas Hedges is terrific in the lead role of a sneaky movie that, rather than preaching and shouting, becomes something uplifting, something hopeful, something moving and something important. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaNov 8, 2018
More than simply a look at the conversion therapy, the film examines the bonds between parents and children. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 2, 2018
Gay conversion therapy gets the indictment it deserves, from an insightful script based on a you-are-there tell-all, and an outstanding cast. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyAlan ScherstuhlNov 1, 2018
When Jared finally erupts, Hedges nimbly navigates the character’s hurt, fear and burgeoning pride — his relief at having at last found his voice. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellSep 12, 2018
The Oscar-nominated Hedges is, as one would expect, superb in the title role, but performances across the board are excellent. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovNov 7, 2018
Yes, Boy Erased is a horror movie, but it bears pointing out that the emotion is by definition intertwined with both empathy and a certain sense of compassion. Terror elicits a shriek. Horror hits you in the heart, and the next thing you know you’re sobbing. Bring some tissues. Read full review
75
Original-CinKaren GordonNov 10, 2018
Boy Erased isn’t the powerhouse that it could have been. But the movie has heart and soul. And, given that Gay Conversion Therapy centers still exist, the story at the core of the film is an important one. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonNov 8, 2018
Hedges is an efficient, expressive actor, and has the knack for conveying complex information with a look or a gesture, as he does here, suggesting the turmoil within his character on the night when his parents assign him to undergo therapy. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 8, 2018
It’s Hedges who owns the film, who lets us see Jared’s pain and confusion on his tightly clenched face — and who, in a gentle epilogue, gives us a lovely, wordless demonstration of freedom. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 8, 2018
The actors, especially an uncharacteristically low-key Russell Crowe, are effective in bringing the personalities to life and director Joel Edgerton (who adapted the source material and also acts) avoids the kind of extreme melodrama that could unbalance a project like this. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyNov 2, 2018
The most emotionally arresting moments of Boy Erased are delivered through quieter scenes between Jared and his parents. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 2, 2018
Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”) gives us every shade of confused, angry, desperation as the “upstanding and honest son” his father has praised him as from his Baptist pulpit. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiNov 1, 2018
Boy Erased is the second gay conversion therapy movie of the year, after “The Miseducation of Cameron Post.” Both are worthwhile. Where “Cameron” was an intimate charmer focused on the importance of camaraderie to get through hard times, the more dramatic Boy Erased is about accepting our family for who they are, in whatever condition they arrive in. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 31, 2018
Joel Edgerton, who wrote and directed, co-stars in Boy Erased. Edgerton casts himself as Sykes, who runs the conversion program, and he couldn’t have found a better actor for the role. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyOct 31, 2018
Boy Erased is the kind of topical, well-intentioned movie that makes you wish it was slightly better than it is. Read full review
75
The Associated PressLindsey BahrOct 31, 2018
Even though it might be difficult to watch at times, it’s done with such evident love and sensitivity that it’s hard to imagine a human being not connecting in some way, and perhaps even learning something along the way. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 12, 2018
Edgerton, who also plays the tightly wound chief of the conversion-therapy organization here, wrings devastating performances from his cast, including Lucas Hedges as Garrard, and Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman as his parents. Read full review
75
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 2, 2018
Joel Edgerton’s earnest, solidly made film will be most effective on, and maybe necessary for, those immediately suffering under the crush of anti-gay bigotry, and those perpetrating it. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 1, 2018
While Edgerton’s fractured approach has a frustrating way of compartmentalizing his characters into their own subplots, making it hard for the movie to convey the full sweep of its emotional journey, Boy Erased regards everyone with such raw empathy that even its most difficult moments are fraught with the possibility of forgiveness. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 9, 2018
Lucas Hedges has a difficult job — to portray a teenager whose best option is to reveal nothing of himself. The key is to make that lack of “reveal” an active rather than passive process, and Hedges does it with remarkable intelligence. His indecision is alive and moving. Read full review
70
SlateJeffrey BloomerNov 6, 2018
Still, to me, Boy Erased feels mostly honorable and fit for its mantle. Whether a great movie about the gravity of gay conversion might ever be made is a trickier, and for now still unanswered, question. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 1, 2018
Boy Erased is a sobering, justly infuriating movie, but its own convenient elisions keep catharsis at bay. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 1, 2018
The film is all the more powerful for its grounding in fact. How powerful? Sufficiently, during most of its length, and extremely during several eruptions of searing drama. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 31, 2018
The film’s sensitivity, though it is an ethical strength, is also a dramatic limitation. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 31, 2018
The reason that Boy Erased hits you like a shot in the heart can be found in Jared’s relationship with his parents. Kidman brings stirring compassion and a growing strength to a woman who learns about herself the more she learns about her son. And Crowe is magnificent as a believer who can’t quite storm the barricades his faith erects around a true reconciliation with his son. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekOct 26, 2018
Even though Boy Erased is well acted and thoughtful, there’s something vaguely disappointing about it. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 9, 2018
Several emotionally attuned performances help paper over Boy Erased’s storytelling weaknesses. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 2, 2018
Edgerton shows an admirable sense of restraint, even when hitting all the usual beats. He includes moments of quiet introspection for the characters and the audience alike. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubLawrence GarciaOct 29, 2018
For all of the effort invested in limning the specific contours of Jared’s struggle, Boy Erased stops just short of its core. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 7, 2018
Boy Erased is strongest when it simply focuses on Jared as he copes with the trauma of coming out in a repressed society. This includes, in the film’s most shocking scene, a sequence of collegiate gay rape that leaves the boy with PTSD, which goes unnoticed and untreated by parents, authorities, and, to some extent, the film itself. Read full review
63
Washington PostMark JenkinsNov 6, 2018
Boy Erased is a showcase for Hedges, who played a closeted boy in “Lady Bird” and who plays a teen with a different sort of burden in the upcoming drama “Ben Is Back.” In each of those roles, the boy-next-door actor finds just the right combination of ordinary and anomalous. Read full review
63
Film Journal InternationalHarry HaunOct 31, 2018
Joel Edgerton produced, directed and adapted the film—much too gingerly and gently to have the powerful impact that it should. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichOct 28, 2018
Good as Lucas Hedges is at acting the tortured teen, Jared is finally too much of a cipher for his story to really hit with the force that it should. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 8, 2019
Boy Erased could have been more sharply etched, all told – there’s something naggingly indistinct about it. But the lessons of Conley’s experience fight manfully, all the same, to punch through and be counted. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 6, 2019
At all events, it shows how homophobia creates credulous, fearful people vulnerable to the snake-oil con trick of “conversion”. Read full review
60
EmpireBen TravisFeb 4, 2019
Joel Edgerton once again proves himself a gifted filmmaker — but for all the craft, compelling performances and good intentions at work here, the drama itself falls somewhat short. Read full review
60
TheWrapDan CallahanOct 31, 2018
It makes its argument against gay conversion therapy — a form of torture usually rooted in the self-loathing of the so-called therapist — persuasively. And it is dramatically impressive most of the time, but it is also very messy and uneven. Read full review
58
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 2, 2018
Boy Erased has problems depicting the fear, intimidation and psychological trauma such programs can inflict on even the most willing of participants. But that’s likely because, at its core, the film isn’t really about the gay conversion experience. Read full review
55
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 2, 2018
Based on Garrard Conley’s 2016 memoir, Boy Erased is a methodical work that tries to account for the horrors of religious conversion camps as soberly as possible—but unfortunately to the point where soberness edges into blandness. Read full review
50
Total FilmNeil SmithFeb 4, 2019
A little more anger would not have gone amiss in this well-acted but strangely remote slice of Oscar bait Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Simran HansFeb 13, 2019
The film feels thin, drab and ultimately unable to harness the collective power of its otherwise talented cast. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 13, 2018
It’s a curiously underwhelming, muted, often plodding two hours that fails to reach the emotional highs and devastating lows one would expect from the material. Read full review
More From This Movie

69 Critic Reviews

7.2 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