Monster
Clover Films | Release Date: November 22, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
36
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleNov 30, 2023
This exquisitely rendered work from Kore-eda is a delicate web of compassion and embattlement: three separate views of one stretch of momentous time, spun and re-spun with care and craft. Read full review
100
The New York TimesNatalia WinkelmanNov 22, 2023
Lovingly detailed and accented by an aching score from Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died in March, Monster is one of the finest films of the year, and its structure — like its circle of characters — carries secrets that can only be unraveled through patience and empathy. Read full review
95
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 27, 2023
While the split-POV conceit initially begs comparisons to Rashomon, Monster’s three perspectives are not so much in argument with one another as they are pieces of the same puzzle. And once they are locked together, the final portrait is staggeringly heartbreaking. Read full review
91
Original-CinKaren GordonNov 29, 2023
[Hirokazu Kore-eda's] magic power is building stories from the small moments that feel so familiar and yet add up to movies that are gently, but deeply resonant. Read full review
91
The PlaylistIana MurrayMay 19, 2023
Taking a mental note of every loose thread “Monster” introduces is a demanding task that may confuse some viewers, but it’s an immensely satisfying and emotionally resonant watch to see how the pieces fit together. Read full review
91
The Film StageLuke HicksMay 19, 2023
What starts as a relatively clear story about sinister pyros, “pig-brained” kids, and abusive teachers transforms, through labyrinthine story mechanics, into a maze of limited perspectives crafted by loss, misinterpretation, and rejection. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 6, 2023
There is so much beauty in Monster, and so much sadness. Read full review
90
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 29, 2023
What matters in Monster isn’t the gamesmanship built into its structure but the imaginative richness, the emotional immediacy, and the vital performances that are concentrated in its extended third section. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 24, 2023
By cutting things up and showing us the perils of fractured perspectives, the director, one of cinema’s great humanists, demonstrates that compassion is more than just a natural state of being; it’s a process that requires constant expansion of one’s field of vision. Read full review
90
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 19, 2023
There’s a deep, and never pandering, empathy at work here, an allowance of confusion and moral error that keeps Monster from the smarmy and didactic lows of so many social-issues films. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 14, 2023
It’s challenging but neither inaccessible nor impossibly dense. Kore-eda invites intellectual engagement but doesn’t leave the viewer unrewarded. This is one of the year’s best movies – the third time in the last decade I have made that statement about one of the director’s productions. Read full review
88
Washington PostMark JenkinsDec 13, 2023
Despite its sometimes overwrought mystery-tale gambits, however, Monster ultimately shifts from a saga of fateful misunderstanding to one of mutual comprehension. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsNov 22, 2023
Thankfully, while “Monster” depends on dramatic irony and revelatory twists, it’s also a showcase for director Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose knack for collaboration brings out the best in his actors, especially his younger cast members. Read full review
85
The Daily BeastNick SchagerNov 22, 2023
One of the director’s finest, its thematic scope and emotional power growing with each new revelation. Read full review
83
ColliderTherese LacsonMay 19, 2023
Kore-eda crafts a careful story, full of hidden twists and turns that reveal themselves with time and patience. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 14, 2024
The film has bad news for us about humanity, but it also exudes a joy in the art of creative storytelling. All of which is a way of saying: pay attention throughout. Read full review
80
NMEMatthew TurnerMar 13, 2024
It’s a beautifully constructed and emotionally engaging tale that’s constantly surprising. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerMar 13, 2024
Monster is Hirokazu Kore-eda channelling Christopher Nolan: twisty storytelling in the service of wise empathy. There is no judgement in Kore-eda’s worldview, just human behaviour in all its glorious complexity. Read full review
80
Screen RantNadir SamaraSep 29, 2023
Monster is many kinds of stories all at once and both the direction and script make sure that it is all in service of making the best film possible. Read full review
80
Screen RantPatrice WitherspoonMay 21, 2023
The exceptional camera work by Kore-eda and tender script from Yuji Sakamoto is a near-perfect pairing. Together, this dynamic duo created a great film that enabled the cast to put every ounce of emotion into their performances. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMay 19, 2023
This absorbing, ambiguously titled movie builds to a moving finish, one that reaffirms Kore-eda’s peerless skill at directing young actors in particular. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 19, 2023
By sharing only select pieces of each character’s private life, he all but obliges us to leap to incorrect conclusions, distracting with topics such as bullying, aggression and suicide when the real subject — how children are socialized, and the unfair pressures this puts on anyone who doesn’t fit the norm — is so much simpler than any of the intriguing dimensions teased along the way. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 19, 2023
The performances from Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayami and the boys have a calm frankness and integrity. As for the story itself, it is arguably a little contrived with a thicket of mystery that perhaps didn’t need to be so dense. But this is a film created with a great moral intelligence and humanity. Read full review
80
Time OutDave CalhounMay 19, 2023
As you’d expect from Kore-eda, it’s all told with the utmost detail and care, and a gentle score from the late Ryuichi Sakamoto only adds to the overarching air of thoughtfulness and empathy. Read full review
80
BBCNicholas BarberMay 19, 2023
The deliberate pacing and sometimes confusing narrative make Monster less engrossing than some of Kore-eda's work, and less likely to win prizes. But it is still a marvel: a minutely observed, profoundly compassionate chronicle of untidy contemporary lives. It's a Hirokazu Kore-eda film, in other words. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 19, 2023
Despite the multiple viewpoints, Monster is actually the anti-Rashomon, a jigsaw puzzle rather than a riddle wrapped in an enigma. The care and empathy with which the director and writer, as well as the performers, extend to all corners of the piece is extraordinary. Read full review
77
The Film VerdictDeborah YoungJul 10, 2023
A gripping drama -- almost a mystery -- about ordinary people from Japanese master Kore-eda Hirokazu connects to viewers, despite an ambiguous ending that feels overly complex and arty. Read full review
75
Film ThreatSumner ForbesMar 28, 2024
Monster stands as middle-tier Kore-eda. It’s a touching tale about childhood and emotional development in a relatively rigid society. Still, it’s never anything more, nor does it push the boundaries of what we should expect from the seasoned filmmaker. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 4, 2023
Even its occasional confusing moments add texture to this brittle but touching tale. Read full review
75
TheWrapTomris LafflyMay 19, 2023
Monster manages to sink its claws into one’s conscience, thanks in large part to the movie’s young leads—like Farhadi, Kore-eda is an astute director of children, able to shepherd their performances in ways both precocious and disarmingly innocent. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 19, 2023
A dense and looping melodrama that spirals towards its core idea with the centrifugal force of a Christopher Nolan movie, Monster is one of those movies that — from its title on down — invites the audience’s worst assumptions of its characters so that it can show us our blind spots when the story eventually circles back to fill in the blanks. Read full review
74
Paste MagazineJacob OllerNov 21, 2023
Monster’s mystery is one only in the ways that all of our experiences are inherently mysterious to others; its drama is devastating, a tragically inevitable snowball rolled by this existential loneliness; its warmth is gloriously defiant of this fate. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 22, 2023
What Kore-eda doles out are not revelatory surprises so much as gradual enlightenments, and our attitude toward the characters is forbidden to settle or to stick. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 19, 2023
The director’s customary delicacy, compassion and sensitivity ripple through the drama, though its affecting moments of illumination are more intermittent than cumulative. Read full review
70
Screen DailyLee MarshallMay 19, 2023
In the end, there’s something just a little too neatly constructed about Monster, something just a little trite about the message delivered after so many narrative twists and turns. Yet there is an emotional delicacy here too that keeps sentiment at bay, at least most of the time. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKyle TurnerNov 17, 2023
Across the film, you can feel the push and pull between a master technician who built his career on the patient, delicate plucking at our heartstrings and his newfound desire to please a wide audience with the broadest of affective strokes. Read full review
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