Five Nights at Freddy's
Universal Pictures | Release Date: October 27, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
33
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
20
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Film ThreatBobby LePireNov 6, 2023
Five Nights At Freddy’s has flaws, but it is an excellent adaption. It feels like the game while still being accessible to any newcomers by crafting an original story. Read full review
71
Paste MagazineTara Bennett Oct 26, 2023
Mostly, Five Nights at Freddy’s relies on a lot of jump scares, and scenes with building tension that result in cat-and-mouse scenarios, which are perfect for the age range it’s playing to. Read full review
70
SlashfilmJeremy MathaiOct 26, 2023
What Five Nights at Freddy's lacks in a robust story — an unexpected plot turn about halfway through feels like a genuinely bold curveball, though it's tempered somewhat by a slightly too neat-and-tidy ending — it more than makes up for with a penchant for oddball theatrics and flair. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'HaraOct 27, 2023
Creepy rather than scary, and more a ghost story than a monster movie, this has a good heart but feels a little toothless for something with so many killer robots. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubLuke Y. ThompsonOct 27, 2023
Yes, there are kills, but they’re often as comical as they are scary, and deliberately so. It’s a fun gateway horror movie for kids—and the easily scared who want to test their limits lightly. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneMiles KleeOct 31, 2023
As a narrative that pretends to plumb the dark absence of missing children, however, Five Nights at Freddy’s is curiously inert, unwilling to get under your skin even as it grows dense with explanations of what’s happening. Read full review
50
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiOct 28, 2023
As far as middling entertainment goes, Five Nights at Freddy’s fits the bill. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJen YamatoOct 28, 2023
“FNAF”’ instead spins out of control as it attempts the fool’s errand that has befallen many a video game movie: shoehorning a weird and immersive experience into the bones of Hollywood narrative convention. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 27, 2023
It’s an odd one, indecisive about its tone and intentions. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 27, 2023
As a motion picture (in the traditional sense of the term), Five Nights at Freddy’s is disjointed and ultimately unsatisfying but as part of a larger cog in a cross-platform franchise, it does everything (and more) that is expected from it. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsOct 27, 2023
Five Nights at Freddy’s has most of the right elements for a good post-Amblin kiddy fright-fest, except maybe good dialogue and distinct characters. Watching the movie, one gets the sense that the games’ morbid personality has been sanded down to its most generic jump-scares and banal revelations. Read full review
42
Original-CinThom ErnstOct 26, 2023
If Five Nights at Freddy’s has anything to offer in the way of entertainment, scares, and authentic memorabilia, it was buried beneath the determined pandering to those addicted to being on the inside of the joke. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleAlejandra MartinezOct 30, 2023
With dreary visuals and a lack of real twists or scares, there isn’t much here for a general audience to hold onto. Die-hard fans will be satisfied, however, and for young newcomers to horror, it might just be a perfect scarefest and jumping-off point into the genre. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredDanny PetersonOct 27, 2023
Five Nights at Freddy's fails at being scary. The premise and setting should've made it an obvious horror win, but some baffling story choices and poor execution makes it feel like a missed opportunity. Read full review
40
The New York TimesNatalia WinkelmanOct 26, 2023
You may chuckle, but it’s hard to tell if the movie is laughing with you. Read full review
40
CNNBrian LowryOct 26, 2023
Like “It,” “Five Nights” wants to milk horror out of something associated with the innocence of childhood, and on that level the quirkiness of the visuals and initial moments of wit likely provide enough of what audiences want to survive, commercially speaking. Even so, the net result is another slice of horror that at best feels a little half-baked. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeOct 26, 2023
A competently made yet maddeningly dull attempt to bring the hit video game to the big screen makes for an instantly forgettable night at the movies. Read full review
40
IGNA.A. Dowd Oct 26, 2023
This big-screen take on the indie-horror sensation has too much plot and not enough of the game's primal security-cam thrills. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeOct 25, 2023
The closest thing to a decent joke comes (I think) in a closing reference, at one or two removes, to a popular television show of the early 1970s. This bewildering exercise’s only other notable achievement is to make Willy’s Wonderland seem an underappreciated masterpiece. It really wasn’t. Read full review
40
NMEJames MottramOct 25, 2023
At least Scream star Matthew Lillard brings some creepiness into his little screen time. Otherwise, Five Nights At Freddy’s is moribund. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyOct 25, 2023
The longer we spend inside Freddy’s, the duller it gets. Read full review
40
Total FilmNeil SmithOct 25, 2023
A ploddingly predictable, gore-lite yawner. Read full review
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 25, 2023
What should’ve been an intricate, twisted, and absurd treat is demoted to generic horror movie sludge, in no way discernible from any of the other spooky titles lining the October release schedule. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenOct 28, 2023
The game, propelled by twitchy point-of-view camera work and abundant jump scares, is fast-paced. The movie is anything but. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJustin ClarkOct 26, 2023
Five Nights at Freddy’s has absolutely no idea what kind of ride it wants to be. Read full review
38
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiOct 26, 2023
When 'The Banana Splits Movie' got there first, and did it slightly better, you’re in trouble. Read full review
35
PolygonJesse HassengerOct 27, 2023
A movie that feels like it’s been machine-learned and reverse-engineered from YouTube fanfic, rather than rooted in any kind of recognizable human experience, behavior, or psychology. Read full review
30
VarietyMurtada ElfadlOct 26, 2023
Faced with a flat script and uninspired direction, the actors can’t save Five Nights at Freddy’s. Read full review
25
ObserverDylan RothOct 26, 2023
Five Nights at Freddy’s takes a novel, off-the-wall premise and makes it feel rote. Even as someone who has no experience with the games, I felt as if I was on my third or fourth playthrough already. Read full review
25
IndieWireWilson ChapmanOct 26, 2023
A film about a haunted Chuck E. Cheese clone doesn’t exactly need to be complex to be watchable. But Five Nights at Freddy’s somehow misses the arcade for the flashback forest, undercutting the obvious appeal of animatronic cartoon characters as menacing slasher villains by refusing to ever become a real horror movie. Read full review
25
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeOct 26, 2023
Freddy’s is rarely frightening — a crowd-friendly PG-13 means fear and carnage are suggested but almost no blood is shown — and it doesn’t have much to say about its underlying subject matter besides, “Hey, wouldn’t it be weird if those musical pizza robots came to life and had sharp teeth?” Read full review
25
ColliderChase HutchinsonOct 26, 2023
There are moments where it feels like it could have become a more gleefully mean-spirited horror ride by really sinking its teeth into the story and actually biting down, but it remains hamstrung by the rating as well as a lack of creativity. Read full review
20
Screen DailyTim GriersonNov 1, 2023
Unfortunately, this adaptation of the popular 2014 video game fails at delivering scares or cheeky laughs, resulting in a tedious experience that relies heavily on horror’s most cliched tropes. Read full review
20
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriOct 28, 2023
Five Nights at Freddy’s, the movie, is the kind of hollowed-out exercise in atrociousness that pretty much forces you to mull other things, be they what you’re having for dinner, the decline of American community, or the heat death of the universe. Read full review
20
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsOct 25, 2023
The film falls flat due to the fact that it’s a tonal disaster zone. It’s like paying entry to a funfair only to find out you’ve wandered into an open counselling session which is being led by a slipshod college undergraduate. Read full review
12
Washington PostOlivia McCormackOct 26, 2023
Instead of prioritizing jump scares and game lore, as you might hope, the film leans into its gooey Hallmark center, focusing on underdeveloped relationships and predictable plot twists. Read full review
0
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 27, 2023
The crimes associated with these mothballed machines are bland and perfunctory, the direction dull and the script inept in the extreme. Read full review
0
The Associated PressMark KennedyOct 26, 2023
Caught between PG and R, as well as lost at the crossroads of inadvertent comedy and horror, the PG-13 Five Nights at Freddy’s has to go down as one of the poorest films in any genre this year. Read full review
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