Scarlet
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: February 6, 2026 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyMar 13, 2026
The Bard’s most famous creation may be many things, but Scarlet’s earnest moralising about empathy and collective responsibility feels more like Polonius’s vibe. Read full review
60
SlashfilmDevin MeenanOct 16, 2025
Dedicating yourself to revenge is an act of self-punishment that closes you off from a happier life. I admire the sentiment but a messy story that sometimes loses sight of Scarlet herself means it has limited resonance. Read full review
58
IndieWireAdam SolomonsDec 8, 2025
Scarlet amounts to a frustrating waste of animating and directorial skill for the price of an excessively ordinary story. Read full review
58
The Film StageJourdain SearlesOct 28, 2025
Opting for very few close-ups, Hosoda mistakes a large scope for compelling images and achieved something fans never thought possible: he’s made a film that looks generic. Read full review
50
The New York TimesMaya PhillipsFeb 12, 2026
“Scarlet” is peppered with a few exceptional moments of inspiration, but ends up caught in an awkward push-pull between Shakespeare’s text and the fantastical spaces where Hosoda’s vision extends. Read full review
50
The Travers TakePeter TraversFeb 6, 2026
The visuals dazzle, the plotting not so much in this gender-switched take on “Hamlet” as a warrior princess revenge epic from Japanese anime master Mamoru Hosoda. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsDec 12, 2025
Inspired but overwrought, “Scarlet,” an anime adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, begins with stunning style before falling off a major cliff. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleDec 10, 2025
Hosoda grafted “Beauty and the Beast” into “Belle,” to sometimes awkward, sometimes illuminating effect. But in “Scarlet,” he struggles to bridge “Hamlet” to today. It’s a big swing, the kind filmmakers as talented as Hosoda should be taking, but it doesn’t pay off. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJake ColeDec 8, 2025
On paper, anime master Hosoda Mamoru’s Scarlet sounds positively electrifying. Read full review
40
Little White LiesCallie PetchMar 13, 2026
On paper, it’s Hosada’s usual tunes blown up on a grander scale. In practice, the results are an overstuffed yet simplistic mess. Read full review
40
EmpireKambole CampbellMar 12, 2026
Mamoru Hosoda’s continuing experiments with animation are passable enough. But it’s not enough to uplift this loose adaptation of a literary classic with its rather clumsy thesis on cycles of violence.  Read full review
40
The GuardianPhil HoadMar 9, 2026
Visually ravishing though it is, Scarlet is a hefty disappointment from director Mamoru Hosoda, a leading light from whom we expect more than an incoherent and overbearing fantasy. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithDec 11, 2025
For an animated feature, Scarlet is unusually ambitious: It’s a “Hamlet”-adjacent existential pacifist revenge parable. It contains lots of instances of its heroine stopping to wonder what everything means, which is another way of saying it’s ponderous and pretentious. Read full review
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