Friendship
A24 | Release Date: May 9, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
8
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezMay 15, 2025
Friendship is awe-inspiringly twisted by the end, a jaw-droppingly comical tale of tragedy, even. But it is masterfully rendered; the rare movie seemingly built from a sketch series turned into a genuinely riotously amusing and f*cked movie that still has the sense to comment on the dark and totally warped corners of the human condition. Read full review
97
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMay 13, 2025
The more queasy the film becomes – in both story and style, with the director preferring unusually moody natural light and nerve-rattling zooms – the funnier it gets. Read full review
90
Paste MagazineGarrett MartinMay 27, 2025
Friendship feels custom calibrated to give Robinson the best possible debut as a cinematic leading man. It’s not just a vehicle for one comedian, though; it’s a timely commentary that, in its own way, slightly deflates the pop sociology notion of the male loneliness epidemic—an idea that basically excuses the anti-social behavior of men who won’t or can’t try to make friends with each other. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonMay 9, 2025
Rudd and Robinson’s scenes together are great. Read full review
90
TheWrapChase HutchinsonMay 5, 2025
Never could the story be described as a series of sketches haphazardly stitched together as many comedies can fall into being. It looks and feels like a drama that is coming apart at the seams as Robinson careens his way through it. Read full review
90
SlashfilmMichael BoyleMar 12, 2025
Friendship is a delightful, vulnerable, agonizing film, and it's a new career height for Tim Robinson.  Read full review
90
ColliderRoss BonaimeSep 14, 2024
Friendship truly has all the makings of a future comedy classic. Read full review
90
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 9, 2024
Partnered with the always ridiculous Rudd, Robinson reconfirms his standing as the reigning master of discomfort. Together, they make "Friendship" the funniest movie of the year. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMay 8, 2025
I’m not convinced that “Friendship” is the corrosive comic masterpiece that early festival raves primed us for. But it’s impressive, not just for the leaps it makes but the assurance it displays. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 14, 2024
It’s easy to imagine how a version of this film might have descended into vaguely connected sketches (and still would have been one of the funniest pure comedies in forever despite its shapelessness), but there’s a clear and rewarding intentionality to DeYoung’s plotting, and it pays off with a finale that — better than almost any scene before it — perfectly threads the needle between all of the movie’s competing energies. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyJul 18, 2025
Robinson, really, is a genius at all this – the way he extends his “f***”s like he’s watching the fabric of the universe collapse around him, or how his smile can both burn with frightening intensity or the fragility of a lost little child. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJul 18, 2025
At any rate, though loose in structure, Friendship offers a few minor masterpieces in the art of cringe. Read full review
80
The TimesKevin MaherJul 17, 2025
All of this, to be clear, is hilarious. Emotionally desolate, but hilarious. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 16, 2025
It’s possible to read Friendship as a plausible, if far-detached character study, a cringe-comedy Single White Male heading for disaster. Then it swerves away, following its nose towards something weirder. Read full review
80
EmpireIana MurrayJul 15, 2025
This zany debut dials up the cringe comedy to its most excruciating extremes — and it’s a riot. Andrew DeYoung and Tim Robinson are a match made in heaven. Read full review
80
Little White LiesHannah StrongJul 15, 2025
Friendship arguably is a horror movie, evident in more than just its score and high wire tension between characters. The excruciating act of being vulnerable with another human being and the sweaty discomfort of realising a new friend is a bit off are mundane but relatable terrors, after all. Read full review
80
LooperAudrey FoxMay 17, 2025
With Robinson doing his thing and Paul Rudd's straight man delightfully off-kilter in his own way, Friendship is a chaotic ride from start to finish. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreMay 10, 2025
It’s the little comedic cul-de-sacs that make the movie work as well as it does, sustaining it as much as the growing tension between Craig and Austin. Read full review
80
The GuardianAdrian HortonMar 12, 2025
Even as a fan, I am honestly shocked that what basically amounts to a 97-minute ITYSL sketch stays actually funny throughout, though a good 15 or so minutes of that threaten overexposure to the brand. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenSep 14, 2024
A gleefully discomfiting portrait of male bonding that delivers some of the year’s biggest laughs. Read full review
79
The AtlanticShirley LiJun 1, 2025
It fearlessly—and wackily—reckons with how confounding people can be in their bid for one another’s approval: at work, at home, at their new friend’s house while dressed in their finest Ocean View Dining clothing. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleDex Wesley ParraMay 15, 2025
What further sets Friendship apart from its predecessors is the sincerity at its heart. This is a movie, essentially, about the contemporary issue of male social isolation and its nasty consequences. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 2, 2025
Veteran TV writer and director DeYoung lures the viewer in and leads us in amused, faintly contemptuous but always nervous laughter. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenMay 17, 2025
I’m not exactly sure what tone Friendship means to set, but the movie itself feels confident in its own skin. And that counts for a lot. Read full review
75
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonMay 8, 2025
If Robinson’s style of humor puts you off already, rest assured that Friendship doesn’t break his existing comic bold. But for those shirt brothers in the Tim Robinson cult already, the Dan Flashes buyers and zipline pullers among us, Friendship offers next-level cringe packaged in something far more Kaufmanesque than his usual fare. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyMay 7, 2025
Most impressive is that DeYoung has not created a collection of connected “SNL” skits. Each part cleverly feeds to another, with echoes throughout the script. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineMarshall ShafferMay 2, 2025
The film plays right into Tim Robinson’s sweet spot of surrealistic and satirical comedy. Read full review
75
The Film StageChristopher SchobertSep 14, 2024
While Robinson’s full-length feature as star does not reach his show’s highs, it’s still a hysterically funny, pitch-black comedy. Read full review
70
The New YorkerJustin ChangMay 18, 2025
It suggests not just a subversion but a putrefaction of the Ruddy-comedy genre—a portrait of male loneliness so totalizing, and so scarily close to the bone, that laughs and screams all but bleed together. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensMay 9, 2025
Especially during its third-act descent into the surreal netherworld of its protagonist’s mind, Friendship plays out as if it were a 97-minute-long I Think You Should Leave sketch. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonMay 8, 2025
These men are so lonely. Thankfully, in a movie, they’re also really funny. Read full review
70
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannMar 18, 2025
Yet, despite this apathy, there is an emotional core to Friendship, one that made me root for Craig despite all of his shortcomings and unpleasantness. Read full review
70
IGNKatie RifeMar 12, 2025
Tim Robinson’s first movie-star role is like an extended I Think You Should Leave sketch with fancier camera work and a guest appearance by Paul Rudd. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 15, 2025
Friendship is primarily a movie for Robinson’s hardcore fans, but, for the Tim-curious, it serves as an amusing — if haphazard and uneven — introduction to his distinctive sensibility. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyJul 17, 2025
The recommendation might be stronger if the mortifying moments for Craig didn’t make me, personally, want to cower rather than laugh. Read full review
60
Screen DailyNikki BaughanJul 17, 2025
Part cringe-comedy, part diagnostic study of the modern pandemic of male loneliness, Friendship has several inspired moments, and strong performances from Robinson and Rudd. Ultimately, however, its determination to straddle both camps means it stretches itself rather too thin. Read full review
60
Time OutElizabeth WeitzmanMay 9, 2025
Yes, Friendship does feel in many ways like an expanded I Think You Should Leave sketch built on bizarro absurdism and a waterfall of exacerbating circumstances. To his credit, though, DeYoung – a TV director making his feature debut – does take advantage of the opportunity in some satisfying ways. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearMay 8, 2025
The whole of Friendship isn’t as attractive as the sum of its disparate parts, and you wonder if a more concise, focused version of this look at the self-consciousness of dudes trying desperately to bond wouldn’t have hit better. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonMay 15, 2025
Male loneliness and insecurity is a thing and the subject of much discussion in media. For me, though, there’s only so much cringe you can binge. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 15, 2025
The teaming of Robinson and Rudd periodically gets Friendship in gear. But the film’s primary comic impulse equates to the sound of gears grinding, in an attempt to shift from second to third. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 9, 2025
How much Tim Robinson is too much? Maybe the exact amount you get in Friendship, the feature debut of writer-director Andrew DeYoung. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanApr 24, 2025
Robinson’s brand of middle-class psycho surrealism works perfectly in bite-size sketch-comedy doses. Stretched out to feature length, a character like Craig simply stops making sense. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMay 15, 2025
Robinson’s dedicated commitment to the bit is a given, but the bit is so one-dimensional that Craig stops being believable or human. Read full review
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