Kiss of the Spider Woman
Lionsgate | Release Date: October 10, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
17
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Radio TimesAmber WilkinsonApr 17, 2026
While director Bill Condon is adept when it comes to staging all-singing, all-dancing escapism, he proves less successful at nailing the grimmer tone behind bars. Read full review
60
EmpireBarry LevittApr 17, 2026
A daring reimagining of an oft-told story, Kiss Of The Spider Woman features some sensational musical moments that nicely hark back to classic Hollywood, but struggles to reconcile two very different worlds. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 28, 2025
This Kiss of the Spider Woman might be wildly uneven, but it’s hard not to be moved by the sight of a great new talent emerging into the world. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJan 28, 2025
We’re in safest hands with Lopez and Condon when he’s playing in that sandbox as the cell-based scenes can be a little stagey and rushed in comparison. Read full review
60
ColliderRoss BonaimeJan 28, 2025
Kiss of the Spider Woman is yet another decent adaptation, but even Condon's visual panache and scale can’t quite elevate this story to greatness. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNatalia KeoganJan 29, 2025
Messy and muddled in its presentation and messaging, Kiss Of The Spider Woman needs more than just compelling performances to raise this project to the level of esteem granted to its predecessors from 30 and 40-odd years ago. Read full review
58
IndieWireRyan LattanzioJan 28, 2025
Kiss of the Spider Woman is a flashy ode to the fairies and the radicals, the maricóns who’ve repurposed their oppression and media literacy into an outsize, fuck-if-I-care-what-you-think political identity. Yet there’s nothing revolutionary about the movie that contains them. Read full review
50
The RevealKeith PhippsOct 16, 2025
While Luna and Tonatiuh play characters transported by movies, the film in which they appear never quite summons the same power. Read full review
50
TheWrapChase HutchinsonOct 10, 2025
Lopez, while certainly dancing all the right steps, is only ever a composite of a movie star who feels trapped in a surprisingly stiff production. She deserves better than what the film gives her, but there’s never a moment when she gets it. Read full review
50
The New York TimesElisabeth VincentelliOct 9, 2025
For the most part, though, the X factor of elegance, sensuality and verve that made MGM musicals so memorable is missing here. You want to give an encouraging grade for effort, but effort is also the last thing you want to see in a musical. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiJan 31, 2025
For a musical so dedicated to celebrating and critiquing the transformative potential of cinematic fantasy, Bill Condon’s Kiss of the Spider Woman brings relatively little of the kind of overwhelming star power that can truly transport audiences. Read full review
50
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJan 28, 2025
Here is an opportunity for a wild and sorrowful confluence of gay dream and national nightmare. Alas, this Kiss of the Spider Woman gives us a competent but glancing rendering of the easier, more palatable aspects of a story that should be anything but. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJan 27, 2025
Dreamgirls director Bill Condon’s off-putting movie is a visual and narrative mess: polished where it should be gritty and ugly where it must be glamorous. Bland, almost always. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyApr 28, 2026
Puig’s story is trivialised by slickness, and the tragic ending barely registers. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeApr 16, 2026
The film exists to give Lopez an opportunity to bring the house down. She does that, but it’s not quite enough. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesOct 10, 2025
Inserting glitzy musical numbers amid such drama could have come off as a subversive twist, but because everything is presented with the same gentle glow of sentimentality it ends up feeling merely tasteless. For “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” this is the kitschy kiss of death. Read full review
40
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganJan 28, 2025
The effort is strenuous; all 128 minutes of it. But it’s almost as exhausting to watch as it must have been to make. Read full review
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