Megalopolis
Lionsgate | Release Date: September 27, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 60 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
24
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsSep 27, 2024
Megalopolis is at once one of the least-accessible films of the year, but the sheer depth and insanity of its accomplishment is one we may never see again. Read full review
90
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaMay 17, 2024
Megalopolis is so chock-full of ideas that Coppola’s melding of time periods eventually buckles under its own weight in a controlled demolition that initially confounds, but eventually shatters the screen in thrilling fashion. The film ends up not only being a cautionary tale about the end of empires, but one that likens the Hollywood system to empire as well (or a tyrannical extension of it). Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisMay 16, 2024
In the end, what matters is the movie, a brash, often beautiful, sometimes clotted, nakedly personal testament. It’s a little nuts, but our movies could use more craziness, more passion, feeling and nerve. They could use a lot more of the love that Coppola has for cinema, which he continues to pry from the industry’s death grip by insisting that film is art. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 16, 2024
And “Megalopolis” — in its most dazzling and audacious moment — breaks through the screen to bridge the gap between life and thought, art and reality. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodySep 26, 2024
With its intellectual earnestness, first-person grandiosity, and aesthetic extravagance, the film is more floridly and brazenly youthful than anything else Coppola has made. Read full review
80
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsSep 24, 2024
It’s a rare bird indeed in that it’s a work of art that actively practices what it preaches, a celebration of unfettered creativity and farsightedness that offers a volcanic fusion of hand-crafted neo-classicism while running through a script of toe-tapping word-jazz that merrily dances between the raindrops of logic and coherence. Read full review
80
SlateSam AdamsMay 30, 2024
Subtitled “A Fable,” Megalopolis can be read as a parable of what happens when you let artists take over the world, and while that may not run more smoothly, it’s a heck of a lot more interesting. Read full review
80
Paste MagazineFarah ChededMay 20, 2024
While Megalopolis might appear gift-wrapped for the cynic, then, if you meet it with any kind of goodwill, you may see in its unabashed rejection of nihilism, defiant unorthodoxy, and complete lack of artistic insecurity exactly the kind of challenge cinema needs right now. Read full review
80
The New YorkerJustin ChangMay 17, 2024
What is inescapably moving about Megalopolis, and what throws even its strangest excesses into meaningful relief, is the degree to which it has evolved into an allegory of its own making. Coppola has made a defense of the beautiful and the impractical, not just as principles of urban design or meaningful living but as art-sustaining forces in the cinema itself. Read full review
80
Screen RantPatrice WitherspoonMay 17, 2024
Megalopolis isn't just a transcendental delight for the senses, it's a manifestation of Coppola's dreams for humanity and his dedication to cinema. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 16, 2024
Megalopolis might be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy every single batshit second of it. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearMay 16, 2024
Say what you will about this grand gesture at filtering Edward Gibbon’s history lessons through a lens darkly, it is exactly the movie that Coppola set out to make — uncompromising, uniquely intellectual, unabashedly romantic (upper-case and lower-case R), broadly satirical yet remarkably sincere about wanting not just brave new worlds but better ones. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 16, 2024
Aubrey Plaza is fantastic in this full-body sensory bath movie which follows a struggle for power among the elites of New Rome. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 11, 2024
Megalopolis is a film drenched in its science fiction and classical influences, captured with insane filmmaking choices that often place shallow performances against a backdrop of deep cinematic flourish. Read full review
70
The AtlanticShirley LiSep 27, 2024
What [Coppola] ultimately created isn’t the realization of his aspirations; it’s an unfinished work, waiting for our reality to catch up to his fantasy. Read full review
70
Film ThreatBradley GibsonSep 26, 2024
This is a film that shouldn’t work. It should collapse under its own weight, but somehow, in the end, it all comes together after a fashion, and that’s the magic of Coppola. Read full review
70
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSep 18, 2024
In Coppola's mind, all that matters is the work, and the act of creating it. We are lucky he returned to make a new movie, and even in its messy, muddled state, we are lucky to have Megalopolis. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 16, 2024
I found myself almost literally leaning closer to the screen during Megalopolis, trying to grasp exactly what Coppola is seeking to communicate. I might have caught about a third of it, at best, but I’ll take a messy, imaginative sprawl over a waxen, tasteful enterprise any day. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJoshua RothkopfMay 16, 2024
Once you let go of the understandable dream of Coppola returning with another masterpiece, there is much to enjoy in “Megalopolis,” especially its cast members, leaning into their moments with an abandon that was probably a job requirement. Read full review
69
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 23, 2024
Megalopolis might be Coppola’s decades-in-the-making passion project, an epic of ambition and imagination, but it is also a magnificent mess of a masterpiece, as irredeemably silly as it is sincerely sublime. Read full review
67
The Film StageLuke HicksMay 17, 2024
At the end of the day, for better and for worse, in awe and in tired confusion, Megalopolis is a garish wonder to behold. Read full review
67
The PlaylistRafaela Sales RossMay 16, 2024
I’m not yet convinced it works, but my goodness, am I thrilled it exists. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubJason GorberMay 16, 2024
Megalopolis is a magical, meandering, maddening construction, one that demonstrates that the process of experimentation is in and of itself both deeply entwined with, as well as above, dualistic notions like success and failure. Read full review
63
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenOct 15, 2024
Only Driver seems comfortable—indeed, invigorated—by the apparently improvisational atmosphere and haphazardly operatic material. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJustin ClarkSep 26, 2024
If Megalopolis, as many speculate, marks the end of Coppola’s career as a filmmaker, it flourishes in that finality, having held back or compromised nothing. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 24, 2024
Naive, decadent, sluggish, dazzling, touchingly sincere in its belief that “a vital conversation” about the state of our nation can save us, even with barbarians at the gates: There’s something to vex everyone in Megalopolis. Read full review
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