i'm thinking of ending things
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): September 4, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
6
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 12, 2020
Some may be frustrated that Kaufman leaves viewers to figure out his ultimately puzzling narrative, but this film’s entrancing strangeness begins to assert a hallucinogenic hold. Even if the roads are sometimes treacherous, they’re well worth exploring. Read full review
100
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 3, 2020
[Kaufman's] film leaves your head spinning. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 3, 2020
You are advised to pay close visual attention, especially to Robert Frazen’s pinpoint editing and Melissa Toth’s subtly shifting costumes, even as you lean in to catch every word of Kaufman’s torrential dialogue and each detail of the mercurial, tinnitus-evoking sound design. Read full review
100
BBCNicholas BarberSep 3, 2020
I’m Thinking of Ending Things draws constant attention to its own artifice, and to the things that can only happen in films. But it seems completely sincere in its concern about ageing, illness, pain, regret, and the connections we make to art and other people. Whichever universe it may be set in, it has a lot to say about our own. Read full review
100
TheWrapSteve PondAug 27, 2020
If you’re trying to follow it without having read the book, it may not make a lick of sense – and even if you have, Kaufman goes in directions that Reid never did. But as funhouse meditation on who we are and how others figure into our identities, it trots out many of Kaufman’s old obsessions in a way that feels fresh and weird. Read full review
100
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonAug 27, 2020
Even two viewings in, I’m struck by the density of the work itself, its feelings on death and aging and the past shifting with every line of dialogue or idiosyncratic image. Read full review
100
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 27, 2020
For all of its self-insistent detours and high-minded indulgences, I’m Thinking of Ending Things rarely feels like a concept in search of a movie. There’s a fullness and vitality to it that shines through even when the film is chasing its own tail, which is basically all it wants to do. Read full review
95
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaAug 27, 2020
It’s a beautiful, strange terrarium of a film, inviting us to gaze through the glass and wonder what’s going on underneath. Just as funny and creepy as it needs to be, the film is Kaufman at the top of his game, firing on all cylinders. A master of his own unique, unclassifiable craft. Read full review
91
Paste MagazineChad BetzSep 6, 2020
The self-awareness of the film could have been unbearable, except awareness (and our fragmentary experience of it) is so entirely the point of everything that the film is wrapped up within and that is wrapped up within it. Read full review
91
Original-CinKaren GordonSep 2, 2020
What’s miraculous is that, through it all, Kaufman stays on course in a movie that is as intriguing as it is wonderfully odd. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 28, 2020
By the end of this strange movie — possibly his most uncompromising and discombobulating, which is really saying something — we have no guarantee that the world it depicts exists outside of someone’s head. The question may just be whose? Read full review
91
The Film StageOrla SmithAug 27, 2020
Both times I’ve watched I’m Thinking of Ending Things, it’s left me feeling off-kilter, its last images lingering in my mind and the haunting final notes of Jay Wadley’s score ringing in my ears. This one will polarize viewers, but nobody can call it forgettable. Read full review
90
ABC NewsPeter TraversSep 18, 2020
If, like me, you enjoy challenges that are emotionally rewarding to puzzle out, then I'm Thinking of Ending Things ranks with the year's best movies. Read full review
90
Film ThreatHunter LanierSep 8, 2020
i’m thinking of ending things is a lawless movie, made up of one memorable scene after another, none of which are restrained by any storytelling edicts—anything goes, and it goes. Read full review
90
PolygonKaren HanSep 8, 2020
The maze Kaufman is leading us through is a mystery, as he never pulls back far enough to show us the whole thing. But as itchy and claustrophobic as the paths are, they ultimately lead to a sense of hope. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 3, 2020
A special film, and occasionally an exasperating one, but not, in the end, an inaccessible one. It’s a work of emotional impressionism with moments of rueful grace and startling images that evoke yearning. Read full review
90
The AtlanticDavid SimsSep 3, 2020
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is long (two hours and 14 minutes) and often frustrating, but it’s also incredibly satisfying on rewatch, which makes its Netflix release a boon. There’s a weird thrill to getting lost inside this movie, only so you can study every odd detail from new angles, over and over again. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 2, 2020
I can say without hesitation that if you’re looking for something ambitious and difficult and super weird — and satisfying, in the end, though think of that in loose terms — I recommend the rather amazing experience. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 2, 2020
This is Kaufman’s most assured and daring work so far as a director. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 4, 2020
The trip to a remote farmhouse is just the narrative skeleton on which Kaufman hangs arguably his most challenging film to date, a piece that verges on Lynchian in its surreal register, moving back and forth between reality and a dreamlike commentary on connection, although there may be even less of the former than it first appears. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 3, 2020
And now, your love-it-or-loathe-it movie of 2020. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 29, 2020
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is crazy good. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzAug 27, 2020
It is beautiful, delirious, frustrating and so wedded to that film-critic notion of the unimpeachable “Kaufman-esque” sensibility that there is little point in arguing with its power, with its immeasurable impact. It works, even (especially?) when it’s not supposed to. Read full review
83
The PlaylistTomris LafflyAug 27, 2020
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a weird, infinite, messy cacophony of reflections, somehow expansive in its narrowness and confrontational in its honesty to a soul-baring degree. Read full review
80
CineVueMatthew AndersonSep 8, 2020
Kaufman’s latest work, a creeping, deeply unsettling, cerebral horror of sorts, is a further addition to his challenging, thought-provoking brand of filmmaking which gets under your skin, and stays there. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeSep 6, 2020
This is not cinema that leaves you feeling good about things. Nor does it tread a familiar path. But I’m Thinking of Ending Things is one of the most daringly unexpected films of the year, a sinewy, unsettling psychological horror, saturated with a squirming dream logic that tips over into the domain of nightmares. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearSep 4, 2020
Somehow, amidst all of the shifting perspectives and timeframes and overall blurring of lines, it also manages to move you to tears even as it leaves you bewildered and unmoored. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeSep 3, 2020
Jessie Buckley’s determination to stop her slippery part from wriggling out of her clutch is positively heroic. The Kerry actor becomes Everywoman and Nobody. Her sorrow is bottomless. Her uncertainty is painful. One can imagine no better guide through these mysterious swamps. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAug 27, 2020
On many levels it's a bold, brilliant work, uncompromising in its darkness and distinguished by rigorously committed performances from a superb principal cast. Yet in many fundamental ways, the movie is frustrating; it's frequently a hard slog, as distancing as it is illuminating. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 27, 2020
With his new film, Charlie Kaufman again proves that if you want something to make you feel trapped in a terrifying claustrophobic nightmare for ever and ever ... well, he’s your guy. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleSep 4, 2020
I’m Thinking of Ending Things nearly sustains something beautiful and sad that blends consciousness and time. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenSep 3, 2020
Kaufman’s last film as director, the stop-motion Anomalisa, was a meditation on misery that comforted viewers, if not itself, with its astonishing artistry. i’m thinking of ending things, while arresting in its own way, offers no such consolation. It’s depressing in form and function. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 27, 2020
Buckley and Plemons are left to carry that water for much of I'm Thinking's 134-minute runtime, and they're both fantastically game, infusing the movie's heady concepts with a naturalism that borders on heroic. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 27, 2020
It’s frustrating, although I’m grateful Kaufman didn’t simply film the book as written. The actors couldn’t be better attuned to the nervous system of this universe. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreSep 3, 2020
In its constant asterisking of its own material, I’m Thinking of Ending Things feels like an artistic dead end, like the confession of someone who can only burrow deeper and deeper into himself instead of looking outward. Read full review
70
Screen RantChris AgarAug 27, 2020
I'm Thinking of Ending Things is a suitably eerie and creepy psychological thriller that ultimately never comes together as a comprehensible whole. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 5, 2020
You’ve got to be in the right frame of mind for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” which can be as much a downer and a chore as “Anomalisa” or “Synechdoche, New York.” In the end, it’s a morose puzzle of a tale that one can appreciate, even if you don’t mind if you never see it again. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenAug 28, 2020
The film has a weird, ghostly, even beautiful pull, but it functions mostly on theoretical terms because Charlie Kaufman has thought it to death. Read full review
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