Hail, Caesar!
Universal Pictures | Release Date: February 5, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 50 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New YorkerRichard BrodyFeb 5, 2016
A comedy, and a scintillating, uproarious one, filled with fast and light touches of exquisite incongruity in scenes that have the expansiveness of relaxed precision, performed and timed with the spontaneous authority of jazz. Read full review
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirFeb 4, 2016
Underneath the laff-riot and the Hollywood satire, Hail, Caesar! is a curiously delicate film built on profound affection for American movies and the illusions they build, and loaded with in-jokes the mainstream audience will grasp incompletely or not at all. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyFeb 3, 2016
An exhilarating switchup: A comic fable that’s both deftly clever and irrepressibly goofy. Read full review
100
SlateDavid EhrlichFeb 3, 2016
If the Coen brothers’ dramas are cautionary tales, their comedies are veritable how-to guides for people who can’t help but enjoy a mirthless chuckle at the humility of human existence. Yeah, the joke is on us, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t funny. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 3, 2016
Hail, Caesar! is pure, popcorn fun — a visual treat, a comedic tour de force and a sublime and sly slice of satire. Read full review
91
The Film StageMichael SnydelFeb 3, 2016
Just as the brothers themselves love to present dialectics about the duality of triviality and seriousness, so, too, does Hail, Caesar! constantly skate back and forth between feeling slight and monumental. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 4, 2016
The great thing about Hail, Caesar! is that it is fun whether you get all its references or not. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 4, 2016
There are the serious Coen brothers movies, like “No Country for Old Men” and, um, “A Serious Man,” and there are the not-so-serious ones. Hail, Caesar! is the opposite of their serious ones, and it is delightful. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 4, 2016
Hail, Caesar! is basically a day in the life of this studio cop, whose job is his religion. And Brolin, in a heart-and-soul performance, takes this crazy quilt of a movie about a man surrounded by nut jobs and plays it for real. He's just tremendous. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayFeb 4, 2016
Slick, silly and often extravagantly pretty, it’s a pastiche that threads a tricky needle, conveying the dual nature of cinema as an enchanting art form and a ruthless, rationalized industrial practice. Read full review
85
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeFeb 3, 2016
The Coens revel in both the glamour and the squalor of post-war Hollywood with a film that more than makes up in wit and flash what it might lack in substance. Read full review
83
HitfixDrew McWeenyFeb 3, 2016
Even when they're silly, Joel and Ethan Coen are as smart as any filmmakers working, and Hail, Caesar! is a clever cartoon filter through which they examine some very sincere spiritual ideas. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattFeb 3, 2016
It's Coen lite, basically, but still filled with their best signatures: cracked humor, indelible characters, and cinematography so rich and saturated you want to dunk a cookie in it. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 3, 2016
The Coens get their cake and eat it, too: The lavish period details, paired with marvelous song-and-dance routines, work on their own terms while a firm self-awareness looms over every scene. It's a tricky balance indicative of directors who know exactly what they're going for: An old-fashioned homage to classic Hollywood and a send-up of the very same thing. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinFeb 5, 2016
It’s not like the film is hollow — hidden at its heart, in fact, is a struggle for the soul of Hollywood — it’s just that it feels more like a series of pleasant diversions rather than a single, solid journey. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisFeb 4, 2016
It’s a typically sly, off-center comedy, once again set against the machinery of the motion-picture business. And, as usual with the Coens, it has more going on than there might seem, including in its wrangling over God and ideology, art and entertainment. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamFeb 3, 2016
Hail, Caesar! is a love letter inked in arsenic, at once celebrating the artistry of Hollywood and cringing at the crass commercialism and rampant phoniness of it all. Read full review
80
The GuardianAndrew PulverFeb 3, 2016
Hail, Caesar! is a lot of fun, and beautifully crafted, too. One to savour. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin ChangFeb 3, 2016
This gorgeously crafted romp through the backlots and Malibu enclaves of Hollywood’s Golden Age tosses off plenty of eccentric comedy and musical razzle-dazzle before taking on richer, more ruminative dimensions, ultimately landing on the funny-sad question of whether life is but a dream factory. Read full review
80
ScreenCrushMatt SingerFeb 3, 2016
Beneath the (sometimes hysterically funny) gags, is a surprisingly thoughtful examination of the same issues that bubble through Joel and Ethan Coen’s more serious pictures; the folly of man, the nature of faith, and the terror of trying to figure out what path through life is the correct one to take. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfFeb 3, 2016
It doesn’t seem new for them, yet as super polished, mannered, slightly surreal comedies go, the movie feels as rare as a unicorn. Read full review
76
The VergeTasha RobinsonFeb 4, 2016
Hail, Caesar! is immensely entertaining, but it's also frustratingly discursive, with so many incomplete sidelines and distractions that it suggests an overcrowded but exciting TV pilot more than a self-contained film. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 5, 2016
The absence of a strong narrative is the film’s weakest aspect. The Coens are so absorbed by their mimicry that they don’t invest a lot of effort in the connective tissue. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 5, 2016
The film is often​ sharp and amusing, but it’s a doodle in the Coen canon. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickFeb 4, 2016
What really makes Hail, Caesar! sing are the Coens’ painstaking period simulations of scenes from five films,including not only “Hail, Caesar!” but a synchronized swimming routine a la Busby Berkeley and a corny musical Western. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaFeb 4, 2016
A goofy conflation of Coenian elements: the numbskull huggermugger of "The Big Lebowski", the La La Land surrealness of "Barton Fink", the Old Testament overlay of "A Serious Man." Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 4, 2016
One of the Coens’ most inspired, bizarre touches is to cast Tilda Swinton as rival gossip columnists, twins who hate each other. She’s quite funny — blithe and vindictive in one incarnation, insecure and vindictive in the other. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldFeb 4, 2016
Hail, Caesar! isn’t the great film you might like it to be, but it’s very, very good fun. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittFeb 3, 2016
Some bits fall flat, yet when the Coens hit, there’s nothing better, especially with their usual ridiculously sublime banter. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJake ColeFeb 3, 2016
Joel and Ethan Coen's idiosyncrasies elevate the film above the level of a mere creative exercise. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 3, 2016
Unquestionably uneven and only occasionally inspired, Hail, Caesar! is nonetheless engrossing and funny thanks to its off-kilter energy and a lead performance from Coens regular Josh Brolin that’s a model of quietly controlled chaos. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsJoe Dziemianowicz Feb 3, 2016
Star-studded and stylish, this addition to the brothers’ acclaimed canon is a looker with laughs and, alas, dull stretches. It’s fun and entertaining — no more, no less, no exclamation point. Read full review
67
ConsequenceCollin BrennanFeb 5, 2016
There’s a lot going on in Hail, Caesar!, but in the end, it’s all a bit too silly to register as important.... Nonetheless, Hail, Caesar! satisfies that one criterion that matters most in Hollywood, and will for time immemorial: it’s entertaining as hell. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyFeb 3, 2016
Somewhere in there are stretches of the Coens’ funniest comedy since "The Big Lebowski"; it just takes a little patience. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovFeb 3, 2016
It’s both more and less than the sum of its parts, but its never less than thoroughly watchable. Read full review
67
The PlaylistNick SchagerFeb 3, 2016
Identifying the method behind the Coens’ madness takes some work, as the film moves at such a rat-a-tat-tat screwball speed that following along often feels like clinging for dear life to the side of a speeding train. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonFeb 4, 2016
Unfortunately, Hail, Caesar! comes across as far less than the sum of its parts. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 3, 2016
The tone of "Hail, Caesar!" is even and assured, yet the comic inspiration is sporadic. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 3, 2016
Hail, Caesar! doesn’t completely hang together. But Johansson in a mermaid’s tail? Really, why else make movies—or go to them? Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 3, 2016
While individually some of the scenes are terrific, they don't add up to much, making Hail, Caesar! one of the Coens' lesser comedies, better than "Intolerable Cruelty," say, but nowhere near the genius of "The Big Lewbowski." Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 3, 2016
Hail, Caesar! keeps stumbling over its own best ideas as we stop to appreciate them – ditching momentum, preferring gaps for applause. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFeb 5, 2016
Their amalgamations can be feats of genius, like their stoner-gumshoe farrago "The Big Lebowski." Or they can pretty much lie there, like much of their new, star-packed comedy, Hail, Caesar!, which is nothing but movie fodder. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanFeb 4, 2016
The Coen brothers’ new movie, set in Hollywood in 1951, brings easy laughs but dissipates from memory moments later, like the cheesy films to which it pays homage – or, perhaps, mocks. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezFeb 4, 2016
The Coens feel out of step this time; they’ve lost their rhythm the way they did in The Hudsucker Proxy, where the style consumed the entire picture, turning what should have been humorous and snappy into a grating chore. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallFeb 4, 2016
Hail, Caesar! is maddeningly hit-and-miss. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 3, 2016
There is amusement to be had, engaging actors to admire and beautiful craftsmanship to behold, but the entertainment quotient is below their usual standard when it comes to the films they target for a mass audience, of which this is one. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 3, 2016
When the Coen Brothers miss, they miss with gusto. Images of Babe Ruth, swinging and collapsing in a heap from the effort come to mind. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonFeb 2, 2016
The brothers' latest also has a certain buoyancy...The fizziness, though, proves fleeting, and Hail, Caesar! too often goes flat. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonFeb 4, 2016
A dispiritingly vitriolic, only sporadically funny satire of ’50s Hollywood, Hail, Caesar! verifies a suspicion long held here, that the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, really hate the movies. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorFeb 6, 2016
In short, there are an awful lot of subplots and comic characters but none of the actors in this star-studded cast is allowed to build his laughs and the Coens just abandon several of these vivid personalities along the way. Read full review
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