Deepwater Horizon
Summit Entertainment | Release Date: September 30, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 52 Critic Reviews
Positive:
39
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
SlateRebecca OnionSep 29, 2016
I left the film moved to tears, and still feeling like something huge was missing. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithSep 28, 2016
As crude as the oil it revolves around, Deepwater provides combustible entertainment without leaving the shallows. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonSep 26, 2016
Accusations of tastelessness are bound to arrive, with some justification. If your priority is to respect the dead, why hire the director of Battleship? Read full review
60
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 13, 2016
If nothing else, Deepwater Horizon makes a case for going back to basics with action films. It’s classically framed, executed, and feels like the real deal, and while it clearly boasts some fine effects work, it manages to lose the cartoonish aspect of so many recent tentpoles. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 28, 2016
As entertainment, it works in the most rote way: the star power of Wahlberg, Russell, and Kate Hudson, who plays Mike’s worried wife; Malkovich’s predictable sliminess; the minor pleasure of seeing the good guys get out; the slight kick of watching something big crumble and burn while knowing that it’s only a special effect, real-world basis be damned. Read full review
58
The Film StageJordan RuimySep 15, 2016
Deepwater Horizon reminds us just how talented an action director Berg is and how often substance becomes a second thought for the director. Read full review
55
TheWrapSam FragosoSep 13, 2016
It’s a thrilling film with impressive set pieces, solid acting and a pulse-pounding climax. Movie-wise, mission mostly accomplished. But to experience Deepwater Horizon and ignore the external circumstances surrounding its creation is a difficult task. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 29, 2016
It’s ultimately a genre film with all that implies, meaning omissions, simplifications, conventional heroics, dramatic banalities and, given the narrative’s limited scope, little sense of the event’s complex causes or its environmental cost. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 29, 2016
It has scale, spectacle and a cast of good actors who seem to believe in what they’re doing. But the movie springs to life only in spurts. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 14, 2016
As is often the case with Berg’s films, it’s technically accomplished, but it’s lacking the depth of a project that comes from a creative spark. Everything here feels routine—more like an inevitability than a work of art or even a piece of entertainment. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnSep 13, 2016
It turns a major tragedy into a minor disaster movie. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiSep 28, 2016
That Berg and writers Matthew Carnahan and Matthew Sand stick strictly to the day of that explosion and subsequent fire that sank the Deepwater Horizon certainly presents a narrative opportunity, but the lack of any resonance to larger issues is troubling (the end-credit coda is woefully thin). Read full review
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