Old
Universal Pictures | Release Date: July 23, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 53 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
26
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 22, 2021
The elements of silliness and deadly seriousness are nicely balanced and although I wasn’t absolutely sure about the ending, which has maybe too neat a bow tied on it, this is just very enjoyable and I was on the edge of my seat, not knowing whether to flinch or laugh, though I did both. Read full review
90
The AtlanticDavid SimsAug 2, 2021
The central conceit of Old has so much juice, and Shyamalan gets to explore so many fun—if sadistic—avenues over the course of one very long day. It’s his most ambitious work in years, wrapped in the delightful, tawdry packaging of a pulpy thriller. Read full review
90
Vanity FairJordan HoffmanJul 27, 2021
Shyamalan teases out new information in just the right doses, remembering all the while that this is, at its core, a B-picture. It isn’t gory, but it’s gross, and the camera knows just how much to show to keep us dialed in. Read full review
83
The Film StageGabrielle MarceauJul 22, 2021
Despite the unrelenting terrors and tragedies, both embodied and existential, Old is a very fun, almost breezy experience. Read full review
80
VoxAlissa WilkinsonJul 27, 2021
There is, indeed, an explanation — but I kind of wish there wasn’t. For most of Old, the sheer weirdness of the setup is what’s so compelling. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredMartin CarrJul 26, 2021
Put simply, Old distils the human life cycle down into one unique cinematic experience. One that will cause arguments, promote debates and lead to further discussions. Something which confirms M. Night Shyamalan remains a force to be reckoned with. Read full review
80
CineVueTom DugginsJul 23, 2021
With Old, Shyamalan appears to have embraced a devil-may-care attitude fitting for a filmmaker known to astound and dismay audiences in equal measure. Whisper it quietly, but it may be his best work in over a decade. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJul 23, 2021
With Old, facing the constraints of filming during the pandemic—on a project that he’d nonetheless planned before it—Shyamalan has created a splendid throwback of a science-fiction thriller that develops a simple idea with stark vigor and conveys the straight-faced glee of realizing the straightforward logic of its enticing absurdity. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJul 23, 2021
Old is vintage M. Night: a high concept brought ever higher by a filmmaker apparently incapable of second-guessing himself. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 22, 2021
Old is, at times, clumsy and obvious, but it’s different and weird, and it taps into something essential. It might be a distant second to The Sixth Sense, but it’s the second-best movie Shyamalan has made. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJul 22, 2021
M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller, Old, is campy, poorly written, candy-colored and subtle as Eurovision. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jul 22, 2021
The film has flashes of clumsiness that should be familiar to those who have stepped before into the Twilight Zone of its maker’s imagination. But Old is also, in its most intense moments, one of his most genuinely disturbing visions: a horror movie about that most universal of horrors, inescapable mortality. Read full review
72
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerJul 23, 2021
Old is not Shyamalan’s best film, nor is it the best film so far this summer, but it’s both a chilling summer escape and an empathetic reminder that other people are working against us as just as quickly as time, when all we have in our time left is each other. Read full review
70
Rolling StoneK. Austin CollinsJul 26, 2021
Old isn’t trying to be fashionable, low-fi, artisanal horror of the kind that seems to be setting the tone for the genre in the indie world. This is, instead, a credibly old-fashioned movie in some ways, a creature feature with something more diffuse than a “creature,” per se, a monster movie in which the monster is an unlucky pairing of longitude and latitude. Read full review
70
IGNRobert DanielsJul 22, 2021
Old isn't M. Night Shyamalan’s best work, but it is one that shows maturity – a movie that tackles universal and intense themes over twists and puzzles. Read full review
70
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaJul 22, 2021
For all of Old‘s flaws – and those flaws are bounteous! – it’s a film with energy; a film with life. Shyamalan doesn’t appear to have a firm grasp on this material, but again, he’s trying! He’s trying to give us something different. And these days, that’s the sort of thing we should all be longing for. Read full review
67
The PlaylistNick AllenJul 22, 2021
Old is so playful that even the finale has an extra nature to it; it gives you way more than you thought you were going to get 90 minutes previous. Read full review
66
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 22, 2021
The movie, and I don’t think I’m over- or under-selling this, is pure chaos. From its rib-poking opening to its magnificently messy conclusion, Old is a feverishly earnest look at mortality, responsibility and, um, well … I wish that I could explain just what I think Shyamalan is getting at in his final 15 minutes Read full review
65
PolygonJoshua RiveraJul 22, 2021
Old is a pretty lousy horror film about adults, but a pretty good one about children. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonJul 22, 2021
In the moments when Old works, it’s because M. Night Shyamalan embraces the inherent weirdness of his material. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 22, 2021
Old is a fiendish idea only partially realized. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJul 22, 2021
Sadly, the film crashes when it decides to offer some sane explanations and connect dots that didn’t really need to be connected. There’s a much stronger version of “Old” that ends more ambiguously, allowing viewers to leave the theatre playing around with themes instead of unpacking exactly what was going on. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 22, 2021
Is the central hook in “Old” enough? For many, I suspect, the answer will be not quite. The film, well-crafted when the characters quit reiterating the previous what’s-going-on-here? reiteration, could use a little more nerve and a little less plot machinery, designed to provide audiences with a happier ending than the graphic novel’s, and a lot of scientific folderol. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJul 23, 2021
For all the mad adventure, it feels like a Twilight Zone episode stretched out thinly to feature length. Read full review
60
The New York TimesGlenn KennyJul 22, 2021
Shyamalan’s fluid filmmaking style, outstanding features of which are an almost ever-mobile camera and a bag of focus tricks, serves him especially well here. Read full review
60
EmpireJoshua RothkopfJul 22, 2021
A Twilight Zone–worthy premise, subtly sold by ace make-up effects, makes for a decent-enough thriller, intriguing in the moment but ultimately too timid to say anything meaningful about ageing. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiJul 22, 2021
While Old is certainly a different kind of thriller, with plenty of elements that work to create a sense of tranquility and desperation in equal measure, it grows wearisome as it evades its deeper themes for the thrill of that final discovery. Read full review
58
CNETRichard TrenholmOct 8, 2021
Life's a beach and then you die. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 23, 2021
Old comes close to seeing its metaphysical mystery through. In the end, though, it settles for something more like supernatural camp, with telegraphed twists and jump scares. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 22, 2021
By the time “Old” is over, the strongest feeling it leaves us with is that it just got 108 minutes shorter. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreJul 23, 2021
Shyamalan . . . feels caught between the more emotionally considered movies he used to make, and the leaner, meaner ones he’s done more recently. His filmmaking can’t make up for the fact that Old is hovering indecisively between the two halves of his career, unable to commit to either direction. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 23, 2021
Old is as wrinkled and decrepit as the title makes it sound. Read full review
50
Original-CinKim HughesJul 23, 2021
I have not read the graphic novel Sandcastle upon which Old is based so I can’t vouch for its faithfulness to the source material. But it’s hard to believe anyone would call this a winner. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckJul 22, 2021
Of course, it all comes down to a Shyamalan-style final twist — the most entertaining part of the film, but it comes way, way too late. Listen, we’re all up for some summer fun on the beach. But by the time we’re allowed in on the secret here, we’re feeling a bit tired. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 22, 2021
Despite an intriguing premise, some Hitchcockian camerawork and a few effective shock scares, this is a thudding disappointment with surprisingly wooden performances from fine actors, and some of the most excruciatingly awful dialogue in any movie this year. Read full review
50
TheWrapTodd GilchristJul 22, 2021
The filmmaker’s diminishing capacity for recognizing naturalistic human behavior once again presents a problem when the time comes for audiences to relate to, much less care about, characters put through the paces of another elevator pitch that he never develops into a compelling story. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 22, 2021
Old grabs you right away, starts losing you at the half-hour mark, pulls you back in with some agreeably bonkers set-pieces, drags you through a tedious closing stretch and finally leaves you in an oddly charitable mood: Say, that wasn’t so bad, except when it was terrible. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonJul 22, 2021
More frustrating than nerve-wracking, Old is hampered by its one-dimensional characterisations within an intriguing set-up. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeJul 22, 2021
Viewers who can take it at face value may find a chill or two here, but ultimately Old can’t escape the goofiness of its premise long enough to put its more poetic possibilities across successfully. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanJul 22, 2021
Old, like most Shyamalan movies, has a catchy hook along with some elegant filmmaking gambits. But instead of developing his premise in an insidious and powerful way, the writer-director just keeps throwing a lot of things at you. Read full review
50
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJul 22, 2021
Old, for its part, is quintessential Shyamalan of The Happening mold, a slick, amped-up B movie that hardly ever gives away that it’s in on the joke. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 22, 2021
The most laughably ludicrous and clumsy “explainer” of a third act that Shyamalan has ever served up. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeAug 1, 2021
If we can’t believe the characters, how are we meant to accept the film’s central premise? Read full review
40
ABC NewsPeter TraversJul 23, 2021
Shot with a poet's eye and a tin ear for dialogue, this tricked-up thriller about the horror of getting old too fast brings out the best and worst in M. Knight Shyamalan by throwing a wet beach blanket on a Covid-resonant premise about sudden death and the collapse of time. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyJul 22, 2021
This supernatural thriller has a wild conceit about a time-bending beach, and every creaky device to hand gets thrown in to keep it going. Read full review
40
TimeStephanie ZacharekJul 22, 2021
The possibilities are rich. But Old is just dumb. Read full review
40
CNNBrian LowryJul 22, 2021
M. Night Shyamalan is up to his old tricks in "Old," but after his heralded breakthrough with "Split," he's back on a downward trajectory. While the premise again has an eerie "Twilight Zone"-type quality, the long journey to a payoff -- littered with pretty awful dialogue -- might be picturesque, but it's no walk on the beach. Read full review
40
Time OutStephen A. RussellJul 22, 2021
Shyamalan has never excelled at dialogue, but the mangling here is gobsmacking Read full review
40
Total FilmMatt MaytumJul 22, 2021
An intriguing concept is executed frustratingly poorly. On the Shyamalan spectrum, it’s more The Happening than Unbreakable. Read full review
30
Film ThreatAlex SavelievJul 26, 2021
The actors do what they can, but even the talent assembled here can’t help getting swallowed up in the Shyamalan vortex of nonsense. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 23, 2021
For many reasons, none of them good, Old is in a class by itself. M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller-slasher-sci-fi-creep-out is peerlessly clumsy, silly and alarmed. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedJul 23, 2021
Old is asinine. Read full review
0
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 22, 2021
To be fair, at least Old captures the sense of time passing past too fast: Rarely have I felt more like my life was slipping away in the cinema. Read full review
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