Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
A24 | Release Date: June 24, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireJohn NugentFeb 14, 2023
Funny, profound, weird, sad, and gorgeously constructed — Marcel is a true original, liable to melt even the most cynical heart. A very special shell indeed. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 30, 2022
It’s best not to expect a life-changing experience from Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. But its tenderness, along with its best jokes, are most welcome right about now. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comCarla RenataJun 21, 2022
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On will make your spirit soar and remind you to enjoy those you love, inhale a bit of fresh air, and respect the earth every second as though it were your very first time. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubCourtney HowardJun 21, 2022
Ultimately, Marcel’s clever creators reward our willingness to believe he and his world are real, while offering an opportunity to look at our own world from a different perspective. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 8, 2022
At just under 90 minutes, the movie is as short and sweet as its stamp-size muse, but an uncommon loveliness lingers; Marcel might just be the most purely joyful, stealthily profound movie experience of the year. Read full review
91
ColliderRoss BonaimeJun 23, 2022
Fleischer-Camp and Slate are able to expand Marcel’s story in a way that doesn’t stretch out this concept, but rather, expands the possibilities of Marcel’s grandiose world and shows us our world from an entirely new perspective. Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is a film with massive ambitions and an even larger heart. Read full review
90
Paste MagazineTara Bennett Jun 28, 2022
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On gives us the opportunity for a delicate, whimsical and poignant escape that will make you feel stronger, taller and better for it on the other side. Read full review
90
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJun 24, 2022
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On both gets on little ones’ level and lifts them up to give them a better view out the window, presenting a world of thought and feeling to go along with the giggles and “aw”s of the film’s endearing landscape. Maybe quirky earnestness is back—so long as it’s done with as much care and insight as this rather marvelous curio. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJun 24, 2022
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is the most unassuming and delicate of movies, but don’t be shocked if it leaves you in ruins. Read full review
90
ABC NewsPeter TraversJun 24, 2022
This unassuming animated gem about a shell (indelibly voiced by co-writer Jenny Slate) trying to find his family shames the bloat of big-studio cartoons by proving good things really do come in small packages. The result is unique and unforgettable. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeSep 6, 2021
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is a film with much to offer when it comes to lessons and laughs. It even handles its primary themes about loss, grief and community with humor and grace, an approach that, these days, seems especially hard to find. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleTrace SauveurJun 30, 2022
Anchored at the center is such a warm, tenderhearted personality and worldview that sends you out of the other side with a rejuvenated and healed spirit. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJul 6, 2022
Slate gives Marcel a bit of wit along with that gentleness (I love when he teases Dean), but it’s the openness of heart you hear in the voice that defines the character—without ever making him mawkish. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJun 28, 2022
There is real emotion and purpose pumped into the tiny picture – it has a heart as big as its title character is small. Read full review
85
Film ThreatAlan NgJun 7, 2022
While simple, there is great depth to this uncomplicated story. Read full review
85
SlashfilmJacob HallMar 13, 2022
It's easy to imagine this becoming a favorite movie for curious, creative kids and their cineaste parents — a cute, sweet, funny, imaginative tale dressed up like reality, an ode to survivors and the power of community. Read full review
83
The PlaylistMarshall ShafferJun 23, 2022
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On locates a world of wonder inside our drawers, under our noses, within our grasp – and enables viewers with the tools to both access and appreciate it. Read full review
83
IndieWireKate ErblandSep 6, 2021
Marcel the Shell seamlessly marries big ideas with charm and humor (and inventive stop-motion work to boot). In short, it’s the cutest film about familial grief you’ll see all year, perhaps ever. Read full review
82
The AtlanticShirley LiJul 7, 2022
The world was not built for the likes of Marcel, but he can help guide us through it. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeFeb 19, 2023
While subjects as dark as separation and death may be faced head-on (a reading from Philip Larkin’s The Trees had me in tears), there’s a comedic quality that reminded me of Aardman’s sublime Creature Comforts animations – a joyous juxtaposition of quotidian, vérité-style dialogue and fancifully inventive visuals that hits a tragicomic sweet spot. Read full review
80
Little White LiesMichael LeaderFeb 17, 2023
Delicate, yet resonant. Read full review
80
CineVueMatthew AndersonFeb 17, 2023
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a true delight. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenFeb 16, 2023
With Slate, his co-creator, co-writer and ex-partner, director Dean Fleischer Camp charts a world in which a semi-orphaned talking shell not only makes perfect sense, but becomes a perfect vessel to share painful, relatable truths about life. Dementia, loneliness and heartbreak are all writ large in Marcel’s world. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeFeb 15, 2023
If you scrunch up your eyes and tilt your head you could imagine yourself watching an avant-garde animation at a Brooklyn art house. But there is also, about it, something of the charming work that Oliver Postgate did for British children’s television in the 1970s. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 15, 2023
The film appears to exist in the Venn diagram-overlap between twee and hipster, which isn’t for everyone – but let it grow on you, and there is a real sweetness and gentleness in its absurdity, a savant innocence and charm. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekJun 27, 2022
There’s nothing jarring or upsetting about Marcel the Shell With Shoes On; it deals very gently with the realities of death and loss. But its quiet tenderness feels expansive regardless, proof that good things really do come in small exoskeletons. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearJun 27, 2022
For all of the painstaking work that went into making this intricate animated feature feel not just handmade but heartfelt, Marcel is a wisp of a wistful film, whether it’s being existentially deep or essentially silly. Most of all, it just feels like a salve. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicKimi RobinsonJun 24, 2022
If a heartfelt summer comedy feels like something that the doctor ordered, then a healthy dose of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is just what you need. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJun 23, 2022
Like those early shorts, then, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is essentially a mockumentary, though one with a far more complex visual scheme and a more ambitious tonal range. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensJun 23, 2022
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On struck me as an animated film like no other I can recall. It’s a story about the difficulty and necessity of making yourself vulnerable that is itself the product of an unusually intimate artistic collaboration, literally a couple’s shared in-joke that took on a life of its—or his—own. Read full review
80
IGNRafael MotamayorMar 15, 2022
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On suffers from an aimless plot that feels stretched too thin, but it provides one of the most endearing and adorable animated characters since Paddington Bear. It delivers enough heart, laughs, and innocence to forgive its shortcomings. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 6, 2021
Don’t miss this strange, special little film. Read full review
75
Original-CinLiam LaceyJul 1, 2022
At times, the film is unabashedly cloying, like a ASMR Forest Gump or a Minion with sensitivity training. But if you can get past that, there’s an admirable ingenuity to the technique, integrating live action and stop-motion with humour and an easy, natural flow. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesKimi RobinsonJun 29, 2022
If a heartfelt summer comedy feels like something that the doctor ordered, then a healthy dose of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On will fill the bill. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleJun 22, 2022
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On could be considered a kids movie or an art-house indie (A24 is releasing). But its proper audience might be anyone who’s ever felt sanded down by life, and could use a roll in Marcel’s rover. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithJun 20, 2022
Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On convincingly proves that bigger sometimes is better. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 6, 2021
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On manages to harness enough of what initially made this diminutive protagonist such an unexpected treat; in particular, Slate’s endearing vocal performance. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 28, 2022
Even a character as sincere and innocently wise as Marcel isn’t above fan service, even if it means taking a sweetly captivating idea an inch too far. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJun 28, 2022
So “Marcel” is sweet, it’s charming, it’s clever. It’s also about as long an 89 minutes as you’re likely to spend in a movie theater this summer. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 21, 2022
While Marcel the Shell with Shoes might have lost its cutesy, two-person production DIY cachet, he finishes the journey to the big screen with his charm and Slate’s wit intact. What he goes through can be laugh-out-loud weird, and surprisingly touching. And if this film is Marcel’s teeny, tiny curtain call as a cultural phenomenon, it’s a perfectly adorable one. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinFeb 18, 2023
It’s mostly very charming, if perhaps a bit self-consciously so, given Fleischer Camp’s tendency to gurgle delightedly on camera at every other line. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 23, 2022
The self-reflexiveness of the entire enterprise only breaks the spell that Slate and Camp work hard to maintain — one which Rossellini effortlessly keeps intact with intelligence, beautifully controlled phrasing and a soft, melodious warmth that feels like a tender caress. Read full review
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