How to Make a Killing
A24 | Release Date: February 20, 2026 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
30
Negative:
2

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerFeb 19, 2026
Like its bloodline kin, it’s a perfectly scathing glance at power, money, and how the love of both can curdle the soul. Read full review
80
TheWrapMatt GoldbergFeb 18, 2026
How to Make a Killing has the acuity to know that even if you are willing to play such a rigged game in ruthless fashion, you’ll still lose. The film’s magic trick is taking this bleak idea and knowing how to find the fun in such brutal sport. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineAlexander MoonyFeb 18, 2026
John Patton Ford cultivates an old-school flair while keeping one finger on the pulse of the current moment Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonFeb 19, 2026
While the promise of that gangbusters opening sequence goes a tad unfulfilled, “Killing” has two strong twists and plenty of reasons to enjoy the romp. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanFeb 18, 2026
It’s a light-fingered drop-dead screw-loose noir — a quasi-satirical mash-up of greed and desperation and Wall Street chicanery and a dash of romance, with Glen Powell, dishy in Brioni suits, turning his pin-eyed handsomeness into a mask of yuppie treachery. Read full review
70
SlashfilmBill BriaFeb 18, 2026
How to Make a Killing is a movie that sneaks up on you, and like Becket himself, doesn't simply stab you in the chest or punch you in the gut. Instead, it slowly poisons you, leaving you bewildered by the end as to how sick you and the country you live in has become. Read full review
65
The Daily BeastNick SchagerFeb 18, 2026
It might not deliver hilariously fatal blows, but it’s smart and spikey enough to leave a pleasurably painful mark. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshFeb 20, 2026
Ultimately, Ford hedges his bets with How to Make a Killing, and lands in an unsatisfying no man’s land. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittFeb 18, 2026
“Killing” clumsily flits between wry humor and serious drama for much of the runtime before finally finding its satirical bite. Read full review
60
EmpireLou ThomasMar 12, 2026
This game and glitzy American redo of a British comedy great contains some fun and thrills but never quite explodes into brilliance. One to consider rather than run to. Read full review
60
Radio TimesMax CopemanMar 12, 2026
How to Make a Killing feels less like an heir apparent for our times and more like a distant relative struggling to forge their own path. Read full review
60
The Travers TakePeter TraversFeb 20, 2026
In this sadly stunted comic thriller, a delightfully depraved Glen Powell must kill seven of his family members to inherit $28 billion. Would you? By the end, the film’s lockstep quality commits the worst crime of all by killing our interest. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 18, 2026
In the end, How to Make a Killing is fine, fun, a nice diversion starring, if no longer the flavor of the month, then a good actor elevating the material around him. Read full review
60
ColliderRoss BonaimeFeb 18, 2026
How to Make a Killing is a fun, albeit flawed thriller drama with a mildly dark sense of humor. Read full review
60
Next Best PictureMatt NegliaFeb 18, 2026
As someone who absolutely loves any kind of a crime film, “How To Make A Killing” can be entertaining at times as a morality play wrapped in designer suits and generational spite. It’s juggling a lot more than it needs to, and it never fully synthesizes its most perceptive ideas, but it’s powered by another star performance from Powell, keeping it barely afloat. Read full review
58
The Film StageLuke HicksFeb 20, 2026
Ford’s witty crime caper employs a nonstop pace that grooves slyly along to Emile Mosseri’s quick, bass-heavy, snare-driven score, which hangs ever-present in the backing soundscape. It has, for better and worse, the feeling of a montage that never ends. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckFeb 24, 2026
Ultimately How to Make a Killing doesn’t have the courage of its convictions, or even its killings, giving it a blandness that’s surprising coming from the writer-director of the much sharper Emily the Criminal, a similarly themed, darkly tinged thriller in which its star Aubrey Plaza displayed a fearlessness that is sorely lacking here. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comRichard RoeperFeb 20, 2026
How to Make a Killing makes a half-hearted effort to surprise and maybe disturb us with some late developments, but by that point we’ve been numbed by the film committing the unforgivable crime of being dull. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 19, 2026
If nothing else, How to Make a Killing is an abject lesson in how to hire the right person to salvage your movie. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisFeb 19, 2026
The story and the actors make How to Make a Killing easy to drift along with, even if it never coheres tonally, logically or, really, any which way. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiFeb 18, 2026
Updates are fine for some stories. Not this one, though. Moving the action to a contemporary urban setting is akin to fitting a fairy with cement boots. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 18, 2026
Qualley brings the required smoky-sexpot energy, but Julia is so underwritten that the actress turns her into an unintentional parody of a familiar character. Also disappointing is Powell’s glib portrayal of Beckett. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleFeb 18, 2026
The deft tonal balance of “Hit Man,” let alone of “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” is missing in How to Make a Killing, a disappointingly flat almost-remake that has neither the biting farce nor the chilling darkness to match its black comedy ambitions. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleFeb 18, 2026
If How to Make a Killing carried this tone — Powell’s signature glibness, with an edge — the movie might have worked better. Instead, Becket is a curiously uninteresting protagonist whose descent into serial killing happens wanly. Read full review
50
The PlaylistMarshall ShafferFeb 18, 2026
The material’s dualities trap Ford between continents, not to mention genres and tones. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldFeb 18, 2026
Powell’s charm, along with some fun rich-person interiors (there’s a library near the end that gives a stellar performance), does a lot to get “How to Make a Killing” to the finish line. But you may well lose interest, as I did, before the murder countdown concludes; this one feels more like a rough draft than a truly well-thought-out movie. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussFeb 18, 2026
Knowing what Powell is capable of, it’s not unreasonable to go into this expecting a bigger payoff. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerFeb 18, 2026
At the center of it all is Powell, making the same face for an hour and 45 minutes, too unflappable to root for, too smug to magnetize as an inhuman American Psycho. And How To Make A Killing needed to pick a side, either of clownish class comedy or of bitter sociopathic satire. Read full review
50
IndieWireKate ErblandFeb 18, 2026
The film suffers from a pair of unfortunate missteps, the first of which is plain from the start and only gets worse as the film drags on. Read full review
45
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzFeb 18, 2026
While Ed Harris, as the cruel patriarch of the Redfellows, is not so much phoning his role in as he is sending it by carrier pigeon, it is Margaret Qualley and Glen Powell who do the most unintentional damage.
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 13, 2026
How to Make a Killing is too timid to either defend his actions or to render him genuinely unlikeable, leaving Becket as nothing but a formless pile of dough. Read full review
40
Little White LiesHannah StrongMar 12, 2026
It’s a song and dance we’ve seen before, with both Powell and Qualley operating on cruise control. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 12, 2026
It isn’t especially funny, and I’m not even sure that it’s meant to be. Read full review
40
The TimesKevin MaherMar 12, 2026
There are some mildly diverting moments, and it’s pleasing to see Ed Harris emerge later on in a significant set piece. Like everything else in this ill-judged effort, his appearance is a wasted opportunity. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 12, 2026
A pale imitation. Read full review
40
The RevealKeith PhippsFeb 20, 2026
As satire, it’s toothless. (The rich are awful. We know.) That might be forgivable if the film was at all funny or could decide if Becket was a victim or a psychopath, a problem not aided by Powell’s noncommittal performance. He’s doing too little. Read full review
40
Time OutPhil de SemlyenFeb 20, 2026
The class satire, the strongest suit of its Ealing ancestor, is blunter than a burglar’s cosh. The murders should be the juice in this devilish cocktail, especially with Zach Woods, Topher Grace and Ed Harris as the marks. But the deaths are throwaway affairs. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 18, 2026
There’s also no real satire here either (moneyed folk are apparently bad, did you realise?) and at this stage of the rich-eating cycle, I just want it to be over. Forget a killing, Ford has made a real mess instead. Read full review
40
Screen RantGregory NussenFeb 18, 2026
A surprisingly bland film that somehow manages to dampen even Glen Powell's usual brand of effortless charm, How to Make a Killing is sketched together with thin characterizations, limp commentary and a sluggish pace. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonFeb 18, 2026
How to Make a Killing should be a lot more fun than it is. The murders are poorly staged and unfunny, and Powell’s performance is so one-note and smug that you can’t root for him even if you think his killing spree is justified. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithFeb 19, 2026
As a comedy “Killing” is simply dead. Read full review
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