Spaceman
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): March 1, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
20
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
UproxxMike RyanFeb 29, 2024
I think Spaceman itself is maybe just a couple tweaks away from being something truly special. But, as is, it’s kind of this oddball movie that I’m glad exists and I truly think Sandler is really terrific. Read full review
80
Little White LiesHannah StrongFeb 28, 2024
Renck’s film floats along with a unique grace, reckoning with the weight of paternal legacy and human folly with sincerity, achieving something quite profound in the process. Read full review
80
EmpireAmon WarmannFeb 22, 2024
Come for the wise alien spider, stay for Adam Sandler at his sombre best in this strange, heartfelt sci-fi drama. Here’s hoping he continues to push himself to new highs. Read full review
80
Total FilmLeila LatifFeb 21, 2024
This is an impactful and at times profound film, with a hauntingly lovely turn from Sandler. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 28, 2024
Spaceman is a wonderfully weird journey that ends on just the right and quite satisfying notes. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezFeb 22, 2024
There’s great craft, impressive creature design, a lugubrious, eventually-soaring score by Max Richter, an excellent Paul Dano nailing the childlike tenor of his inquisitive creature, and low-key Adam Sandler sitting in the pocket, enjoying the chill ease of never overdoing it. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comRobert DanielsFeb 21, 2024
There are plenty of flaws in Spaceman. Mulligan’s character is underwritten . . . The overall tone might also be too sleepy, too introspective and despondent to some’s liking. But I just love Sandler in this register. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekMar 4, 2024
It’s one thing to dole out the happy pills that make an audience love you and another to earn their trust minute by minute. Sandler, it turns out, knows how to do both. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 26, 2024
Granted, a trip to Jupiter is a long way to go to find yourself, and if this were the Sandler we see in movies like “Grown Ups,” it would be interminable. But with this version of Sandler, it’s a worthwhile trip. Read full review
70
TheWrapSimon ThompsonFeb 21, 2024
Smart, entrancing, and filed firmly under interesting, Spaceman is a conversation-starting meditation on the human condition made as a piece of art for audiences to experience rather than being a film made with an audience in mind. Read full review
67
The Film StageRory O'ConnorFeb 29, 2024
Like the film’s many predecessors, Spaceman is a story of how far a person might go to escape their traumas––a journey outward that leads to one within––yet even if Renck is out to give us his Solaris, the director knows better than to take this conceit too seriously. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckFeb 29, 2024
It’s a pleasant and occasionally mesmerizing ride, thanks in no small measure to Sandler’s skillful empathy and yet another absorbing turn by Mulligan, who never disappoints. In the constellation that is Hollywood, her star continues to be one of the brightest. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsMar 1, 2024
Beautifully crafted but tragically underbaked, 'Spaceman' had the blueprints for Adam Sandler's best-ever dramatic vehicle, but wound up becoming the most unrealized one. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyFeb 29, 2024
Sandler’s performance, Jan Houllevigue’s post-Soviet production designs and Max Richter’s soaring score enliven a handsome if dreary drama. The pacing, alas, is painfully slow, and every character save the spider is underwritten. Read full review
60
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzFeb 28, 2024
It’s Dano who floats away with the most goodwill, giving Hanus a tender, ultimately haunting air despite being, you know, a horrendously frightening creature that, in a parallel universe, might’ve inspired Stephen King to write It. Read full review
60
ColliderRoss BonaimeFeb 26, 2024
Spaceman is a rocky journey, but in times like these and thanks to Sandler’s performance, it’s often worth the trip. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 21, 2024
A lot of solid craftsmanship has gone into Spaceman, and there’s a disarming guilelessness to the solemn storytelling that has some appeal. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 21, 2024
We’re missing any real sense of awe – but for all its faults, this lands somewhere between noble failure and endearing oddity. Read full review
58
Original-CinKaren GordonMar 4, 2024
That it falters under the weight of its earnest ambitions doesn’t mean that we don’t get its heartfelt healing message. But that earnestness, and a distracting plot device never quite takes off. Read full review
57
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaFeb 29, 2024
Despite Sandler’s powerful sincerity, Spaceman misses the joke. Read full review
55
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaFeb 28, 2024
Spaceman fails to grab our attention and, like Sandler's character, feels adrift. But as the journey towards the Chopra cloud — which Hanuš describes as "the beginning of everything" — continues, the conversations between spaceman and space spider grow warm, thoughtful, and even charming. Read full review
50
Screen RantFerdosa AbdiMar 1, 2024
The most glaring issue with Spaceman is that the leap from page to screen leaves quite a bit of the story behind and saddles its lead actor with much of the heavy lifting. Read full review
50
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMar 1, 2024
Strives for stratospheric emotional heights and yet proves so self-seriously somber and saccharine that it plays like a leaden parody. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubManuel BetancourtFeb 29, 2024
While others may find in this visually arresting outer space drama a probing meditation on grief and marriage (not to mention human alienation writ-large), I never did warm up to this Colby Day-penned character study, finding it much too caught up in its own ambitions to make its emotional beats pay off. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 28, 2024
If there’s one thing interesting about “Spaceman,” it’s how it demonstrates how a great actress’ essence — just the essence, not even the performance — can elevate a nothing part. Read full review
50
CNNBrian LowryFeb 26, 2024
Spaceman feels a little too weighty in its reliance on emotional cliches. Whether that’s ultimately due to the underlying material or the heavy hand brought to translating it, the net effect is a failure to launch. Read full review
50
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaFeb 22, 2024
Despite thoughtful visual artistry, and a great dramatic performance from Adam Sandler, Johan Renck’s Spaceman ends up too scattered, and too literal, to make its tale of a lonely astronaut feel remotely important. Read full review
50
IndieWireRyan LattanzioFeb 22, 2024
Renck’s film leaves [Sandler] quite literally lost in space with nowhere to go, and rather than leave us with new perspectives on space travel or marital discord or an awe-eyed curiosity about either, we leave with a shrug. Read full review
50
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganFeb 21, 2024
It’s just so hard to buy into Spaceman. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMar 5, 2024
The film presents Jakub’s memories in such fragmented fashion that we can’t really piece together any kind of emotional through-line; we’re told about it, but we can’t really feel it, which renders the movie didactic and tedious. Read full review
40
VarietyOwen GleibermanFeb 21, 2024
Spaceman, it’s my duty to report, is a glum and meandering science-fiction fairy tale of a movie. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 21, 2024
It’s a spaceflight to nowhere. Read full review
38
Slant MagazinePat BrownMar 8, 2024
Spaceman seems to want to be an allegory about men’s emotional unavailability and its impact on heterosexual relationships, but instead of coming across universal, the film’s human characters, along with much of the drama, are mostly empty space. Read full review
30
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonMar 1, 2024
Spaceman is neither particularly astute about human nature nor discernibly interested in the politics embedded in it, and it is not even meme-ably bad, which is a shame. So much wasted potential. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 1, 2024
The best one can say for Spaceman is that it’s a trippy curiosity. The worst is that it’s a serious swing-and-a-miss for the Sand Man, and a career low for Carey M. Read full review
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