mother!
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: September 15, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 51 Critic Reviews
Positive:
36
Mixed:
14
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlNov 8, 2017
Art itself should seek a restraining order against anyone who insists, “Here is the one thing that Mother! means!” Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 14, 2017
Mother! is an unparalleled achievement, entirely unprecedented and unexpected in this era of studio filmmaking. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 14, 2017
The movie is a savage attack on the egomania that enables a director to fancy himself a deity, as well as the rotten patriarchies that govern the worlds of art, industry and religion alike, with Lawrence embodying the wise but perpetually ignored voice of the divine feminine. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovSep 14, 2017
It’s an absolutely crazed fever dream of a film, and like a febrile infant it begins with a few odd notes and barely heard, often off-camera sounds, and then proceeds to build those seemingly minor instances of weird until it crescendos into an ear-piercing, panic-inducing visual and aural shriek. Read full review
100
TheWrapSteve PondSep 13, 2017
For its combination of ambition and audacity, this is a glorious piece of cinematic insanity. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 7, 2017
This one’s a crucible of sweaty pre-natal panic, weird knocks at the door, mind games and ultimately, a roaring, miniature apocalypse set inside a single claustrophobic living room. If that already sounds like your home, it's time to go and give it a try. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 5, 2017
As horror it is ridiculous, as comedy it is startling and hilarious, and as a machine for freaking you out it is a thing of wonder. Read full review
100
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 5, 2017
Yes, it is pretentious. But pretension is also about ambition and this is cinema that is willing to kick out the lights. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 5, 2017
A sick joke, an urgent warning and a roar into the abyss, Mother! earns its exclamation mark three times over and more. Read full review
100
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 5, 2017
Darren Aronofsky’s churning fever dream mother! is a devouring and restless experience: a creative surge that’s like the lancing of a boil, releasing a torrent of despair and disgust for the greedy chaos of society today as well as a self-loathing portrait of the artist as an emotional succubus. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJessica KiangSep 5, 2017
mother! is something truly magnificent, the kind of visceral trash-arthouse experience that comes along very rarely, means as much or as little as you decide it does, and spits you out into the daylight dazzled, queasy, delirious, and knock-kneed as a newborn calf. Read full review
95
The VergeBryan BishopSep 15, 2017
It is undeniably effective in setting mood and tone, and it’s the kind of film that will leave audiences talking no matter what they think of it. If the sole purpose of art is to create an emotional response, Mother! is a masterpiece. Read full review
91
IndieWireBen CrollSep 5, 2017
mother! begins as a slow-burn and builds towards a furious blaze. Awash in both religious and contemporary political imagery, Darren Aronofsky’s allusive film certainly opens itself to a number of allegorical readings, but it also works as a straight-ahead head rush. Read full review
90
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 11, 2017
Mother! is a mad fantasia of fire and water and insanity, a spinning, flaming plume that is not here to make you like it, though it wouldn’t mind if you decided to just bow down in worship. Read full review
88
The AtlanticChristopher OrrJan 9, 2018
This is a demanding film, and there is one grisly (though in no way gratuitous) twist near the end that will test the endurance even of those who appreciated what came before. So be forewarned: Aronofsky has made precisely the movie he set out to make. But it may very well not be the movie for you. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonSep 14, 2017
Naysayers will no doubt argue that mother! is an incomprehensible mess. But as sheer visceral filmmaking, it’s a must-see. If you’re looking for meaning, read a book. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 13, 2017
Shot with a surrealist's eye for madness and destruction by the great cinematographer Matthew Libatique, Mother! always seems on the verge of exploding. Your head will feel the same way. And I mean that as a compliment. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 12, 2017
mother! is at times horrifying, at times riveting, at times baffling, and at times like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Read full review
83
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerSep 14, 2017
It’s a dizzying, sadistic feature, and may well be Aronofsky’s most biting work since Requiem for a Dream, but it’s also concerned with some deeply painful and humane material. Where that film aimed for repulsion of a literal bent, however, Mother! is far more concerned with horrors of the allegorical variety. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 12, 2017
It’s almost unbelievable that something this narratively arty is being released as a mainstream horror movie, but the filmmaking ranks as some of Aronofsky’s most skillful. Read full review
80
Village VoiceApril WolfeNov 8, 2017
What I feel compelled to say, which can get lost in the myriad interpretations we may have of the film’s story or meaning, is that for all its self-indulgences and excess and ghastly sights, I was quickly enamored with Mother! in a way I’ve not been with any other Aronofsky film. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensSep 15, 2017
This is the kind of movie that often racks up more than a few walkouts but also makes for passionate postscreening conversations. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinSep 9, 2017
A difficult film and one that's likely to offend in some ways. But as an elliptical, dream-logic infused visual poem, it certainly leaves a searing impression. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramSep 7, 2017
Aronofsky’s maternal horror is the most out-there studio movie of the year. You won’t believe your eyes. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 5, 2017
This is a tale that, like any number of fanciful genre outings, both pulls you in with its intriguing central dramatic situation and pushes you out with some mightily far-fetched plot contrivances. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 15, 2017
It’s more engrossing than terrifying, horrific instead of simply scary. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsNick VadalaSep 14, 2017
If nothing else, Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, mother!, will get you talking. Part psychological thriller, part anarchic horror flick, it is one of the strangest movies to come from a major studio in recent years — and Aronofsky seems to revel in that confusion. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartSep 14, 2017
Calm down, “Black Swan” guy. Viewers will survive; some may find, as I did, scenes he intended to be terrifying as ridiculously over-the-top. But Mother! is undeniably a wild, memorable ride. It’s a Rorschach test of a movie to interpret however you like. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSep 14, 2017
Aronofky gets exactly what he needs from his top-notch cast. Lawrence is appealing and never allows herself to be reduced simply to a howling victim. Bardem, Harris and Pfeiffer are menacing in their own varying ways, with Bardem capable of turning on the charm at key times that makes us wonder if we haven’t misjudged him. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittSep 14, 2017
Impressive in its ambition, mother! doesn’t quite reach the heights of Aronofsky’s Black Swan in terms of bizarre masterpieces, yet endless conversations about what the heck you just saw will surely be born and raised. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 13, 2017
The inevitable disappointing CinemaScore exit polls aside, it’s worth seeing — if you don’t mind a little insanity in escapism that offers no escape, only the promise of a new fairy tale on another page. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 14, 2017
Darren Aronofsky’s film pretty much defines “not for everybody.” He is here to challenge the audience as much as entertain it; happily, he does both, and with no half measures in either department. It is intriguing, frustrating, bizarre and over-the-top — way over. And yet when you leave, you can’t deny: There is a lot of movie going on here. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 13, 2017
Mr. Aronofsky is a virtuoso of mood and timing, a devoted student of form and technique straining to be a credible visionary. But as wild and provocative as his images can be, there is something missing — an element of strangeness, of difficulty, of the kind of inspiration that overrides mere cleverness. Read full review
65
IGNJosh LasserSep 14, 2017
What is less certain is whether the breadcrumbs that are available to the viewer the first time through mother! will be satisfying enough for them to do more than run a quick Google search to provide some answers. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 17, 2017
Kudos to Darren Aronofsky for having the courage to make this film. Kudos to Paramount Pictures for having the guts to open this wide rather than burying it or hiding it as a VOD release. It’s too bad it doesn’t work. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldSep 15, 2017
mother!, for this viewer, felt long and punishing; artful yet self-sabotaging, eventually crumbling. I never looked away — but I never want to see it again. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoSep 15, 2017
Your toleration of mother! will be determined by movie-going patience. Aronofsky is painting with some blistering broad strokes, but they’re just that – broad and undefined. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneySep 12, 2017
Love it, hate it, or stuck somewhere in between, it’s something you simply need to see to believe. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 6, 2017
For all its feverish activity, Mother! feels static. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 5, 2017
Mother! is ambitious and dorky, like a Hieronymus Bosch painting redone as swirl-art. It’s entertaining to watch, because it’s not easy to see where it’s going—though you might feel a little underwhelmed when you discover where it ends up. The main reason to keep watching is Lawrence, receptive and radiant. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 5, 2017
Its dread has no resonance; it’s a hermetically sealed creep-out that turns into a fake-trippy experience. By all means, go to mother! and enjoy its roller-coaster-of-weird exhibitionism. But be afraid, very afraid, only if you’re hoping to see a movie that’s as honestly disquieting as it is showy. Read full review
51
Paste MagazineWill LeitchSep 13, 2017
Aronofsky can be a moving, almost disorienting stylist, but he’s all blunt force trauma here. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 18, 2017
Yet the movie’s grasp of experience feels tenuous, trippy, and, dare one say, adolescent; if you gave an extremely bright fifteen-year-old a bag of unfamiliar herbs to smoke, and forty million dollars or so to play with, Mother! would be the result. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 14, 2017
With mother!, Aronofsky throws caution to the winds and delivers his most abstract cinematic experience yet. It’s also arguably his worst. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 14, 2017
Even Lawrence’s magnetic powers can’t keep Mother! from going off the rails, which at first occurs cumulatively, then in a mad rush during the film’s outlandish climax. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GraySep 13, 2017
If Black Swan was filmmaker Darren Aronofsky's fevered valentine to the artist's self-abnegating drive toward greatness, then Mother!, his loudest and most comprehensive work to date, is either a critique of or a doubling down on that impulse. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 13, 2017
The action and the scale of the acting are often more befitting an elaborate stage play than a film. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatySep 13, 2017
The title isn’t the only thing about the film that has an exclamation point; every scene comes with one – and also seems to be in blaring, buzzing neon. The movie doesn’t know when to stop. Read full review
50
The Film StageC.J. PrinceSep 11, 2017
By the end, mother! is easy to admire for its ambition, but even easier to laugh at for its execution. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonSep 14, 2017
When the film leaves the realm of the impolite or even criminal for something far more extreme, it achieves a level of excess that makes the whole enterprise increasingly cartoonish, rather than just awful. Read full review
0
ObserverRex ReedSep 15, 2017
Nothing about mother! makes one lick of sense as Darren Aronofsky’s corny vision of madness turns more hilarious than scary. With so much crap around to clog the drain, I hesitate to label it the “Worst movie of the year” when “Worst movie of the century” fits it even better. Read full review
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