Saturday Night
Sony Pictures Releasing | Release Date: September 27, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
16
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeFeb 3, 2025
For all the talk of gamechanging comedy genius, Saturday Night ultimately plays it rather safe: it’s closer to a Noises Off-style romp transposed to a TV studio than the blast off of a cultural revolution. Read full review
60
NMEJordan BassettJan 31, 2025
The film lacks narrative drive and genuine comedy, then. As it barrels towards its inevitable conclusion, though, a funny thing happens. Out of the chaos emerges a rather inspiring ode to making it up as you go along, living in the moment, saying ‘yes’ and hoping for the best. Read full review
60
EmpireNick de SemlyenJan 28, 2025
The founding of a comedy institution shot as a madcap thriller, Saturday Night glides over the surface rather than drilling deep, but it’s largely a hell of a fun 109 minutes. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerOct 10, 2024
Reitman clearly made this film from a place of love and admiration for the institution of SNL and the people, then and now, who produce it. He might get the facts wrong at times; what he gets right is the feeling that every fan who grows up watching SNL imagines the show is like behind the scenes — giddy and chaotic and brimming with passionate creativity. Read full review
60
Time OutElizabeth WeitzmanOct 4, 2024
An experienced SNL staff writer might have infused the script’s basic nostalgia with deeper knowledge. But when Reitman does take chances, it’s an exhilarating success. Read full review
60
ABC NewsPeter TraversSep 27, 2024
Jason Reitman energetically tracks the lead-up to the first episode of SNL in 1975, but the result is only fitfully funny, leaving the cast struggling to register. Best in show are Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase and Nicholas Braun in a surprise dual role. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisSep 26, 2024
Saturday Night is a movie made by fans, but because Reitman assumes that his viewers are fans, too, and because he’s racing against the clock, he gestures at instead of digging into the show, its humor and history. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 1, 2024
This film, so fresh and enterprising at many moments, ultimately disappoints. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerSep 25, 2024
It’s more akin to speed-reading from the SNL memoir library than experiencing the thrilling unevenness—the captivating try-whatever stupidity—of the actual live show. It’s inconsequential in all the wrong places. Read full review
50
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsOct 11, 2024
Saturday Night plays with the sharp erraticism of an improv comedian's neurons, but it quite simply doesn't believe in itself the way Lorne did about the film's subject. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 3, 2024
In 2024 a movie about a live-TV countdown to destiny, once upon a time in ’75, needs more than moderately skillful reverence, and reaction shots of people cracking up at colleagues, to show us what it might’ve been like to be there. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleSep 27, 2024
In Jason Reitman’s overstuffed, adrenalized Saturday Night, a dramatization of the windup to that fateful first broadcast, you don’t feel the buzzy air of revolution so much as hear the voice of present-day legacy curation getting in the way. Read full review
49
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 30, 2024
This is a movie that so badly wants to be as cool as its source material that it trips over itself, in backward Chevy Chase style, into something so old-fashioned and dully familiar that no amount of retro sheen can boost its cool bona fides. Read full review
42
The Film StageEthan VestbySep 11, 2024
The issue is that the mania never builds: a few crashing stage lights and the personalities surrounding Lorne never are convincingly erratic enough. There’s no real tension, and certainly nothing in the way of feature-justifying stakes. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 1, 2024
Forget in-jokes or fan service, this is a movie so long on cos-play (much of it brilliant) and short on character development (none of it interesting) that it requires a casual knowledge of the show’s lore to understand, let alone to enjoy. Read full review
40
Screen RantFerdosa AbdiSep 19, 2024
This particular narrative is a sound idea but for a documentary instead. Read full review
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