| Netflix | Release Date: November 14, 2025 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
31
Mixed:
19
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
iDec 5, 2025
This film has the conversational dexterity and comedy of early Woody Allen films, the sadness of Lost in Translation, and the appealingly self-referential celebrity heft of Notting Hill. It is Baumbach, Sandler and Clooney at the top of their games, in a game where the audience is very much invited to play.
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The Film StageSep 1, 2025
Baumbach is making his Fellini film, and it’s a joy to watch. There are funny, recurring jokes involving cheesecake and a lonely man never being alone. There are heartfelt, regretful scenes that nearly always involve Sandler, this film’s co-MVP with Crudup. And Clooney is doing both sides of what he does best.
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Nov 18, 2025
Could the movie have hit harder at the self-involved stars we often worship? Of course. But what makes it powerful is not the Hollywood drama. This is a movie for any of us who have missed a child’s school recital, asked an assistant to work late or skipped a family dinner because a client was running behind. It’s about time. It’s about where we choose to spend our time.
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Nov 24, 2025
There’s a lot to like about “Jay Kelly,” the unexpectedly sweet new film from director Noah Baumbach. It’s beautifully shot, bustles with strong performances by a roundly endearing cast and indulges in an old-Hollywood elegance well-suited to its story: the late-life crisis of its titular megastar, played — embodied, really — by George Clooney.
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RogerEbert.comNov 13, 2025
For a story of a guy who’s willing to get messy for the first time in years, it’s an overly clean piece of screenwriting, one that too often lets its A-list star play ideas instead of a character. But there’s enough to like here to forgive a film whose ambition exceeds its reach, both in some of those ideas and a flawless supporting cast, especially another fantastic turn from Adam Sandler.
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Sep 29, 2025
There are hints of The Life Aquatic, which Baumbach co-wrote with Wes Anderson, with its absentee father who may not be a great artist either, as well as Anderson’s train-set Darjeeling Limited. Gorgeous as Jay Kelly is, and as funny as it is in moments, it can’t help but feel a little minor by comparison – a little easy, even, on its man-who-wasn’t-there protagonist.
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Dec 4, 2025
Inevitably, the results do not quite cohere narratively or tonally. But the film still has a strange, old-fashioned charm. You can’t really imagine anyone other than Clooney playing Jay, but Sandler is equally good; he brings a pathos to Ron, a man who has perhaps loved not wisely but too well.
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Dec 4, 2025
The most disappointing part is that the film is peppered with so many brief moments of comic flair and clear-eyed truths that they are collectively almost enough to convince you that it doesn’t matter what Baumbach’s intentions might’ve been. Unfortunately, those sharper-edged bits and pieces eventually become subsumed by a drippy sentimentality that sticks to you like the crisp white suit that Clooney is often wrapped inside of.
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Though Baumbach lays the groundwork for a satire of Hollywood excess, he instead delivers a familiar but elegant depiction of successful men reflecting on choices they can’t undo, the damage created by those decisions, and the limited time they have left to make right what they still can.
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Nov 13, 2025
Aug 28, 2025
The movie has absorbed its actor’s vibe. It looks great, and it ambles along pleasantly, rarely veering too far into the dramatic or the emotional; moments of tension or insight are often defused with a laugh or some other odd narrative distraction. But by the end, it gets you anyway.
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IndieWireAug 28, 2025
Baumbach lacks Sofia Coppola’s singular ability to leverage a character’s wealth for the wanting it reveals of them, but he, Mortimer, and Clooney share a vivid understanding of the resentments that can form in the space between who we are and how we’re seen — and of how stardom can widen that space to the point that friendships and families are liable to fall into it unnoticed.
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Next Best PictureAug 30, 2025
Although considerable attention is paid to a general love of cinema and those who work to create it, this portrait mostly plays on the surface, evading the more complex inquiries necessary to give this analysis greater depth. Despite much to commend, there remains an emptiness at the center that mirrors the protagonist’s own life. Perhaps it is intentional, but it remains unfulfilling.
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Aug 28, 2025
There’s nothing overtly dislikable about the film, and there are a handful of scenes that are beautifully written, acted, and directed. But Jay Kelly feels more sentimental than truly thoughtful, particularly in the motif that resounds like a clanging bell in Jay’s brain: Why didn’t I spend more time with my kids?
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