Everest
Universal Pictures | Release Date: September 18, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
14
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
89
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisSep 17, 2015
This is a movie you feel deeply in the pit of your stomach. Sometimes, it literally hurts to watch it. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanSep 22, 2015
The mountain, grim and unforgiving, remains the star. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 16, 2015
This is what filmed spectacle used to look like — a trip to a place or time most of us could never see. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 2, 2015
It lacks the same constant surprises of last year's "Gravity" or the visual poetry of "Mad Max: Fury Road," but Kormákur's movie nonetheless marks the rare fusion of effective craftsmanship with focused storytelling. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 18, 2015
It succeeds wonderfully, offering moviegoers a rare taste of rarified air -- and as compelling an argument as you can make for seeing a movie writ large on the oversized screen of an actual movie theater. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJacob HallSep 16, 2015
Like the mountain for which it’s named, Everest is rock solid. It’s big, it’s beautiful, it’s terrifying, and it’s merciless to both its characters and the audience. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 2, 2015
Kormákur creates such a convincing world – the craft of this film is astonishing – that you’re willing to forgive its less delicate touches in favour of its totally compelling depiction of what it must be like to ascend into a place that’s heaven one moment and hell the very next. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 2, 2015
With its perilous central premise and gallery of individuals some of whom are destined not to make it, you could say Everest is a disaster movie in the old Hollywood sense of the term, but it doesn't feel like one. And that's a good thing. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorSep 18, 2015
There is no tragic hero here; there is no overarching explanation, but a movie that offered either of those would seem pretty pat. Take it or leave, Everest is just there. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeSep 18, 2015
Part IMAX nature documentary and part Hollywood disaster movie, it does an effective job of conveying what it’s like to climb the mountain, the hours and days spent acclimating on practice hikes, and the punishing physical effects that accompany each subsequent change of altitude. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 18, 2015
In this case, character development is neglected in favor of awe-inspiring views. There are times when we feel like we're on the mountain. Unfortunately, our companions - the men and women populating the screen - are never more than half-formed. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTom RussoSep 17, 2015
Director Baltasar Kormákur (“2 Guns”) and his cast craft a lean narrative tone that humanizes the action without an excess of gloss. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc MohanSep 17, 2015
There have been plenty of mountaineering documentaries over the last few years, and Everest suffers in comparison to them simply by being a dramatization. As realistic as the effects are (and you can occasionally tell when a shot is green-screened), you're still aware on a gut level that Jason Clarke and Josh Brolin were not actually filmed at 29,000 feet above sea level. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 17, 2015
There's only one star in this movie: Everest. Kormákur couldn't shoot higher than base camp, around 14,000 feet, without sickening the actors. But a crew traveled to the top to get footage, while much of the climbing was shot in the Dolomites. No matter. You watch Everest and you believe. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 16, 2015
Based on true events, filled with stunning visuals and featuring more than a half-dozen of our best actors delivering solid performances, Baltasar Kormakur’s Everest is a high-altitude roller coaster ride that will leave you drained. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 17, 2015
Everest may disappoint those looking for a more awe-inspiring film with big vistas and jaw-dropping stunts and acts of surreal heroism. Unlike many mountain-disaster stories, this is the kind that makes you never want to look at a mountain again. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangSep 2, 2015
Kormakur doesn’t make the mistake of exalting his subjects as extraordinary individuals, or suggesting that they were obeying some sort of noble higher calling. Everest is blunt, businesslike and — as it begins its long march through the death zone — something of an achievement. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 17, 2015
Director Baltasar Kormakur (2 Guns) essentially made a faux documentary with big stars and better lighting. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatySep 2, 2015
When the lights come up, you don’t want to feel like you’ve watched a ­better Cliffhanger. You want to understand the tragedy you’ve just watched. Yes, you want to be entertained, but you also want the icy, whipping wind of reality to sting. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 2, 2015
Salvatore Totino's crisp 3D photography and Kormakur's way with a clear, fluid, thrilling action sequence show off the mountain in immensely impressive ways. But the humans involved get short shrift. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennySep 18, 2015
There’s a resemblance here to both the story and the movie adaptation of the story told in “The Perfect Storm.” The characters involved are making a good faith effort—but good faith efforts by humans can only go so far. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineEric HendersonSep 17, 2015
It feels less like an cautionary adventure movie or the classy Hollywood equivalent of a Reader's Digest "Drama in Real Life" and much more like a disaster epic. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanSep 17, 2015
Everest gets several things right, but it fails to find a way to make the average viewer relate to the people on the mountain. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 17, 2015
A fairly good, extremely grueling movie as far as it goes — tracks the true-life fortunes of a battered group of climbers to the highest place on Earth. Yet somehow it doesn't go far enough. Read full review
60
TimeLisa SchwarzbaumSep 23, 2015
The insertion of attractive Hollywood stars into a daunting landscape makes for some odd contradictions of scale as the story unfolds with white-knuckle inevitability. [28 Sept. 2015, p.61]
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 17, 2015
Though there is heroism as well as love here, because it involves the deaths of people we have come to care about, Everest is finally a sad story, though not always a dramatically involving one. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 17, 2015
Everest is a sprawling mess of a movie, one you feel like could have been great but instead roams all over the place and winds up being just pretty good. Read full review
60
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekSep 15, 2015
Everest is visually splendid, though it loses a few points for its murkiness in rendering its main characters as distinct individuals. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramSep 14, 2015
A valiant effort that never quite scales the dizzy emotional heights required, running out of oxygen in the final act. Visually, though, it’s stunning. Read full review
60
EmpireKim NewmanSep 14, 2015
Spectacular and well-acted, this suffers from much the same problem as the situation it depicts — too many people on the mountain and too many threads to follow so that affecting individual stories get lost in the snow. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 2, 2015
Ultimately, Everest is not concerned with the why, but with the how and it's grimly efficient at building up the drama, helped on by Clarke's wonderful character study, even if the film as a whole never quite reaches the dizzying heights of its subject. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 2, 2015
The hardship of the trek is vividly and stomach-lurchingly portrayed, particularly when the storm sets in, but it never makes the crucial leap from the screen into your bones. Read full review
60
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 2, 2015
This is one of those cases where fictionalizing a true event, or at least fusing two or three real people into one composite character, might have resulted in tighter storytelling. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 21, 2015
Everest, in short, suffers from the same problem as Everest: overcrowding. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubSep 17, 2015
The feature film Everest provides soaring visuals, but it’s a distant second in terms of storytelling depth and narrative impact. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 17, 2015
Though it assembles a first-rate cast in a story taken from reality, Everest feels icebound and strangely abstract, lacking the gravity of genuine tragedy or the swagger of first-rate adventure. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 2, 2015
While it’s impossible not to be somewhat caught up in these climbers’ life-or-death struggle, Everest is oddly uninvolving — it depicts a horrific scenario in an underwhelming, distancing way. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 2, 2015
Everest is a frustrating movie in many ways – despite some lurches and shocks, it doesn’t quite deliver the edge-of-your-seat thrills that many were hoping for, and all those moderately engaging characters mean that there is no centrally powerful character. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 17, 2015
The director was Baltasar Kormákur, a gifted filmmaker from Iceland who shouldn’t be blamed for a case of industrial filmmaking gone wrong — the culprits in elaborate clunkers like this are usually the producers and the studios. Read full review
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