Bridesmaids
Universal Pictures | Release Date: May 13, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliMay 12, 2011
A film of great hilarity, humanity, idiosyncrasy and grade-A, eyebrow-singeing raunch. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 12, 2011
Through it all -- the free-form conversations, the brilliant set pieces, the preposterous gross-outs, the flawless performances -- Kristen Wiig's forlorn maid of honor, Annie, seeks her own destiny with a wrenchingly cockeyed passion. Read full review
100
SlateDana StevensMay 12, 2011
See it because it's f---ing hilarious. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesMay 12, 2011
Bridesmaids is hilariously funny, but what makes it exhilarating is how boldly it defies that conventional wisdom about what men and women like. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMay 11, 2011
She's an Everywoman you can believe in, showcased in the kind of deft comedy of feminine passion - where deep despair meets Wilson Phillips - that a great many people have been waiting for. Now that Wiig and company have built it, will they come? Read full review
90
NPRElla TaylorMay 13, 2011
And at its loony best, Wiig and Mumolo's script hurls a torrent of bridesmaid-zilla set pieces at us, playing out like a "Sex and the City 3" read-through gone deliciously awry. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMay 13, 2011
From the first overheated moments of Bridesmaids...it's clear we're in for that rarest of treats: an R-rated romantic comedy from the Venus point of view. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazineTodd GilchristApr 30, 2011
A breakthrough comedy, a four-square piece of populist fun that ranks as quite possibly the best mainstream American comedy in years-at least since "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMay 12, 2011
In an age of doggedly unambitious comedy, one marvels at the finesse these first-time screenwriters and director Feig bring to marrying raunch, romantic comedy, and the tested but ever-true bond between women. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 12, 2011
Kristen Wiig is the best sketch comic alive, and Bridesmaids should finally make her a movie star. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMay 12, 2011
Bridesmaids seems to be a more or less deliberate attempt to cross the Chick Flick with the Raunch Comedy. It definitively proves that women are the equal of men in vulgarity, sexual frankness, lust, vulnerability, overdrinking and insecurity. Read full review
80
EmpireAnna SmithJun 20, 2011
Finally, a female ensemble comedy that balances realistic characters with smart laughs and side-splitting farce. Not everything works, but there's more than enough here to keep you chuckling - not to mention baying for a sequel. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisMay 12, 2011
The movie is smart about a lot of things, including the vital importance of female friendships. And it's nice to see so many actresses taking up space while making fun of something besides other women. Read full review
80
TimeMary PolsMay 12, 2011
This might be a turning point in feminism and comedy, provided that both sexes can embrace it. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 11, 2011
There are laughs aplenty, some disgusting, some rather sweet, some both at the same time. Read full review
80
SalonMary Elizabeth WilliamsMay 10, 2011
It's a movie that succeeds, often beautifully, not by forcing its characters to be as naughty and gross and pathetic as men are. It soars by letting them be as naughty and gross and pathetic as women are. Three cheers for equality. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Siri AgrellMay 13, 2011
Like Apatow's best work, this is about friendships – only this group of loveable misfits wear matching purple gowns. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigMay 12, 2011
Those looking to get a raucous laugh should say "I do" to Bridesmaids. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianM. E. RussellMay 12, 2011
Bridesmaids follows the lead of other Apatow productions and finds much of its comedy in pain, horrifying awkwardness and the difficult work that goes into building and maintaining relationships. If you liked this in "Knocked Up," you'll probably like it here. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 12, 2011
Wiig has the natural beauty and self-deprecating expressiveness it takes to be a star comedienne; she spends much of Bridesmaids looking like a slightly girlier version of Lucinda Williams. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasMay 12, 2011
It's no surprise that Bridemaids sputters, coughs, and lurches, but it's a winning shambles, buoyed by a sharp, balanced comedic ensemble and some truthful observations about how close friends adapt when their lives fall out of step. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyMay 12, 2011
Like many Apatow films, Bridesmaids has a rambling, disjointed quality, crammed with sequences that elicit laughs without advancing plot. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 12, 2011
Kristen Wiig is an indisputable goddess of comedy. And this rowdy fem-friendship movie she stars in and wrote with Annie Mumolo is infused with the Wiig brand of wicked mischief. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 12, 2011
Proving girls can get just as down and dirty as boys, the wedding comedy Bridesmaids contains some uproarious moments of gross-out humor. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 12, 2011
Wiig's natural and savvy instincts to go easy, and let the audience come to her, serve her and Bridesmaids well. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMay 12, 2011
Bridesmaids is a bit of a groundbreaker... Not exactly a banner for feminism but equal time is overdue. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisMay 11, 2011
Bridesmaids openly, comfortably turns the stress of being girlfriends into comedy. It's really about the single friend backing away from the edge of temporary insanity. This isn't the greatest such movie. That would be Nicole Holofcener's "Walking and Talking" (1996), with Catherine Keener and Anne Heche. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreMay 11, 2011
This is "Her Hangover," a smarter and sweeter stumble to the altar that never quite gets to Vegas, and doesn't seem to mind. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 7, 2011
For longtime Wiig fans, this uneven, overlong, emotionally involving and discreetly ambitious film will represent a welcome and overdue step up from her popular sketch work on "Saturday Night Live" to something sustained and searching, not to mention pretty funny. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 13, 2011
It's certainly not a "breakthrough" comedy, unless the breakthrough is that women will flock to slobby, heartfelt romps starring Kristin Wiig instead of Seth Rogen. It's progress, sort of. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie ZacharekMay 12, 2011
Bridesmaids is the Bride of Frankenstein of contemporary comedies, a movie stitched together crudely, and only semi-successfully, from random chick flick and bromance parts. Read full review
63
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMay 13, 2011
So what is Bridesmaids? A boozy wedding comedy? A touching character story? A paean to friendship? At turns, it's each -- making it a wedding movie with a commitment problem and giving Feig's scattered film a rudderless quality between the laugh lines. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanMay 12, 2011
If this sounds like a typical date movie, worry not. It's very much an Apatow production-though the crasser additions, like his already-notorious food poisoning scene, feel painfully forced. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearMay 10, 2011
Wiig comes out a winner, but nothing is worse than watching a perfect marriage of performer and material get so perversely undermined. Read full review
60
Village VoiceKarina LongworthMay 10, 2011
Many of the chaotic set pieces cataloging Annie's self-destruction have a kind of dumb crassness that works against Bridesmaids' often smart, highly class-conscious deconstruction of female friendship and competition. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid DenbyMay 16, 2011
It's essentially a skit idea, not a dramatic idea, and the best the movie does with it is to repeat it. What saves Bridesmaids is Feig's love of performers - in particular, his love of actresses. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 11, 2011
Bridesmaids is bipolar filmmaking at its most disconcerting, with changes in tone so abrupt that they can cause whiplash. In part because of this and in part because the writing is often lazy and self-indulgent, the movie rarely works. Read full review
40
VarietyJoe LeydonApr 30, 2011
A sluggish, charmless misfire in which even the most appealing players -- must try too hard to make anything close to an engaging impression. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickMay 13, 2011
By the time two hours had dragged by, I felt a lot like I had sat through a five-hour wedding. Read full review
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