Funny Games (2008)
Warner Independent Pictures (WIP) | Release Date: March 14, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
6
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
A chilly and extraordinarily controlled treatise on film violence, Funny Games punishes the audience for its casual bloodlust by giving it all the sickening torture and mayhem it could possibly desire. Neat trick, that. Read full review
91
Film.comEric D. Snider
Some provocative filmmakers seem intent on irritating or turning off the audience. With Haneke, I get the feeling that once you understand what he’s up to, he’s glad to have you in on the joke. He certainly goes about executing it in a masterful way. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
You can take a page from Wes Craven before he went flat and keep repeating, "It's only a movie; it's only a movie; it's only a movie." But is it? Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The experience of watching Funny Games, be it the original or this version, is never forgotten, whatever your ultimate impression of the film. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Funny Games is not entertainment but it is an experience. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Can a movie be gripping and repellent at the same time? In Funny Games, a mockingly sadistic and terrifying watch-the-middle-class-writhe-like-stuck-pigs thriller, the director Michael Haneke puts his characters in a vise, and the audience too. Read full review
80
EmpireDamon Wise
A stylish, darkly satirical horror-thriller, raising serious questions about Hollywood’s sanitisation of violence. Read full review
80
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
By and large, reviewers have conceded that the picture is exceptionally gripping and suspenseful while deriding its moral subtext as a crock. The only explanation possible for such fuming pettiness, in my opinion, is the fact that Michael Haneke isn’t one of us. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
Brutal, sadistic yet well-made statement about how violence is portrayed in media and our reaction to it. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Watts, who is one of the film's executive producers, brings a taut intelligence to the proceedings, but her character, like Roth's, is more archetype than actual person. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianStan Hall
One might reasonably despise Funny Games and consider Haneke an exploitative hypocrite. Still, whether it's the original or the replica, this is a film that is impossible to enjoy and difficult to forget. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Is Funny Games an unqualified success? No, and for this reason: In order to analyze the devolution of violence into entertainment, the premise obliges the film to superimpose a complicated game atop the genre's simple one – in other words, it makes a game out of the game it condemns. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterStephen Farber
Perhaps the best way to appreciate the picture, its few intellectual pretensions notwithstanding, is as a classy horror film with a particularly nasty edge. It's not exactly entertainment, but it casts a poisonous spell. Read full review
70
Washington PostJohn Anderson
While the movie's star -- and ruler, and ship's captain, and grand poobah -- is Haneke himself, his actors are sublime. Read full review
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