Finding Nemo
Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: May 30, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
90
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Total FilmNeil Smith
The H2O theme fits in with the main feature, its tale of a clownfish searching for his son constituting Pixar’s most effective amalgam of comedy, artistry and emotional pull. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
You could trawl the seven seas and not net a funnier, more beautiful, and more original work of art and comedy than Finding Nemo. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This time the dad is the hero of the story, although in most animation it is almost always the mother. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
Finding Nemo and its Pixar predecessors tap into the shared gene among the kids and adults that delights in imagination-engaging, eye-tickling and wit-filled storytelling. You connect to these sea creatures as you rarely do with humans in big-screen adventures. The result: a true sunken treasure. Read full review
100
New York PostLou Lumenick
Summer hasn't even started, but you won't likely find a better catch this season than Finding Nemo, a dazzling, computer-animated fish tale with a funny, touching script and wonderful voice performances that make it an unqualified treat for all ages. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
It has what the most heartfelt Disney animated features used to have: rapturous imagery matched with real wit. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
I don't think we're going to see a better--a funnier or more genuinely heartwarming, for that matter--comedy this year. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Pixar's employees, masters of computer-generated animation, capture the look of the ocean like no artists before. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The movie's generosity of spirit and artistry swamps its flaws. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleC.W. Nevius
The visuals pop, the fish emote and the ocean comes alive. That's in the first two minutes. After that, they do some really cool stuff. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
It's the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat their tale's darker subtexts that makes Finding Nemo such a resounding piece of storytelling. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
The great joy of watching a Pixar production is how it rewards not only younger viewers but their older companions as well. Read full review
100
L.A. WeeklyHazel-Dawn Dumpert
On a purely visual level, Finding Nemo is as gorgeous a film as Disney's ever put out, with astonishing qualities of light, movement, surface and color at the service of the best professional imaginations money can buy. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
An exhilarating fish story in the perfectly cast comic adventure. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The humor bubbling through Finding Nemo is so fresh, sure of itself and devoid of the cutesy, saccharine condescension that drips through so many family comedies that you have to wonder what it is about the Pixar technology that inspires the creators to be so endlessly inventive. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
An undersea treasure all the same, and a prodigy of visual energy.
90
TimeRichard Corliss
Nemo, with its ravishing underwater fantasia, manages to trump the design glamour of earlier Pixar films. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderAndrew Stanton
Aquatic joyride. Read full review
90
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
May be a fish tale, but its story of the paradox of love -- knowing when to hold on means knowing when to let go -- is profoundly humane and human. Read full review
90
SlateDavid Edelstein
Of all the great vocal characterizations...the showstopper is Brooks, who hasn't had a part this good since "Lost in America" (1985). His Marlin is tender, cranky, hysterical, yet somehow lucid. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Pixar's Finding Nemo may well have the best casting of any animated film of the past 30-odd years. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Pixar is so good at what it does that every other kiddie-entertainment purveyor -- including parent company Disney -- flounders in comparison. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Ray Conlogue
Though the Disney logo is on this movie, there is -- possibly excepting little Nemo himself -- not a single cloying, sentimental Disneyesque creature in it. There is, instead, wit and flair in concept and writing, the trademark of the Pixar people who drove the project. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
As always, the voice casting is perfect. Throw in a moral, and some nice touches of technical accuracy (that fish keepers will appreciate), and the movie represents the best family film to-date of 2003. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The most gorgeous of all the Pixar films — which include "Toy Story" 1 and 2, "A Bug's Life" and "Monsters, Inc." —Nemo treats family audiences to a sweet, resonant story and breathtaking visuals. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Leave it to a g-rated cartoon to give the live-action epics a lesson in action, fun and bracing originality. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
This stirring children's movie about separation anxiety is swimming with comic references only adults will catch, thus greatly expanding the potential audience. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Dazzles us with computer-generated animation that has never looked quite so boldly exotic or shimmeringly beautiful. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
The whole thing is absolutely beautiful to look at, even when it has a bad case of the cutes. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The best break of all is that Pixar's traditionally untethered imagination can't be kept under wraps forever, and "Nemo" erupts with sea creatures that showcase Stanton and company's gift for character and peerless eye for skewering contemporary culture. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Very clever and imaginative indeed, and its pictures are so gorgeous that they alone could warrant a second viewing. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
What's more impressive, and in the end more important, is the high standard of storytelling that Pixar continues to meet by locating both humor and emotional depth in worlds created out of lines of code. Read full review
80
Village VoiceEd Park
Stuffed to the gills with surprises. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Though not as great as "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters, Inc.," Pixar movies that are the gold standard for family movies, Finding Nemo is visually entrancing. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Finding Nemo is, as it happens, the most dangerously sugared of the Pixar productions to date--how could any father-finding-son saga be otherwise?--but the threat is now one of oversophistication. [9 June 2003, p. 108]
70
TV Guide MagazineAngel Cohn
The colorful and kid-friendly characters are a delight, though very young children might be alarmed by some of the larger creatures, who tend to come into view teeth first. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
It's all beautiful, all right. But before long I began to feel beaten against the rocks of that beauty -- Finding Nemo smacks of looky-what-I-can-do virtuosity, and after the first 10 minutes or so, it's exhausting. Read full review
50
Film ThreatKevin Carr
After four Pixar features under their belts, it is painfully easy to see the clichés emerging. Read full review
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