Stay
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: October 21, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
41
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
15
Negative:
8
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The ending is an explanation, but not a solution. For a solution we have to think back through the whole film, and now the visual style becomes a guide. It is an illustration of the way the materials of life can be shaped for the purposes of the moment. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Some people find this twisty and twisted psychological thriller arty and pretentious. I find it arty and provocative. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Yet for a film so affectingly steeped in loss, resignation and the ghosts of memory, the revelation that pulls it all together, while satisfying and even touching, lacks emotional resonance. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Despite the actors, the visuals and Forster's directorial swagger, the movie lacks impact. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
It's all very deep, but in a tricked-up, art-directed sort of way. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Stay is interesting, but it's hard to recommend to anyone but the small cadre of David Lynch devotees who will inhale anything with a whiff of similarity to their favorite auteur's scent. Read full review
58
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
In Stay, the director, Marc Forster, fresh from "Finding Neverland," turns Manhattan into a nightmarish dreamscape and his characters into self-destructive ghosts. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Eventually I gave up on meaning and began instead to study the profuse imagery -- and also the flat characters and anchorless performances. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Forster should be commended for attempting something as daunting as the overreaching Stay, which despite all of its muddled logic and porous reality – or perhaps because of it – forces you to think, a genuine rarity these days. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Yet another variation on the theme of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." If you've read the short story, you'll see where things are going in no time flat; if you haven't and want to be surprised, don't look it up. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
With its flashy, pretentious visual effects, this is really a 98-minute dream sequence--though it's worth recalling that the most effective dream sequences tend to be only a few minutes long. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Stay is all dressed up with no place to go, an eye-popping exercise in lavish style unattached to any discernible content. Read full review
50
PremiereRyan Devlin
A quarter of the way through the film, it’s all just too much. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
If you're the kind of moviegoer who likes puzzling out the plots of insoluble movies, then by all means rush to see Stay, a great big blurry mess. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
It's become a tired cliché for characters in "serious" science-fiction movies not to realize they're dead or dying, but Stay as a film doesn't seem to realize that it's dead from the outset, an unconvincing automaton grimly going through the motions. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
An ultra-arty "The Sixth Sense" that deliberately inhibits comprehension of the story until the very end -- and arguably continues to inhibit it even then -- pic features certifiably talented people on both sides of the camera collaborating on a project that probably shouldn't have been undertaken in the first place. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The final twist does more to unravel what's come before than to tie it all together, making what's come before feel like a cosmopolitan goose chase. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
There's really not much of an audience for this picture. The movie demands that its viewers put the fragmented images and information together like an intellectual jigsaw puzzle, but it never gives those viewers a good reason to do so. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Forster and Benioff are able craftsmen who apparently thought it might be interesting to seal themselves into a narrative box with no way out. Sorry about that, guys -- I hope it was a growth experience. Read full review
40
Village VoiceRachel Aviv
In Marc Forster's humorless thriller, going insane is an exciting, luxurious affair. People suffer stylishly; depressives are angry and dirty; they make art, carry guns, and live in magnificent houses. Read full review
40
EmpireIan Nathan
The type of movie often described as a fever-dream: weird, offbeat, otherworldly… An experience that also coincides with feeling ill. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
If "The Sixth Sense" was a bad movie redeemed by its surprise ending, Marc Forster's Stay is a seemingly good movie leading to a devastating letdown. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Gosling's been better elsewhere but delivers an adequate performance. McGregor and Watts seem baffled most of the time, as well they might be. Forster keeps us from drifting off with inventive camerawork; in this case, that's like saying a hideous suit has well-stitched lapels. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
A steaming compost heap of high-art pretense and half-cocked psychoanalysis that almost makes you sorry Nicolas Roeg isn't making pictures anymore. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
That mind-bending, mystical business was better handled in such films as 1990's "Jacob's Ladder." Read full review
30
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Marc Forster takes a maximalist approach to this mumbo jumbo, which means that in addition to lots of wacky angles, shiny surfaces, seemingly endless stairs, and sets of twins, triplets and quadruplets, he deploys the unsettling vision of three talented actors - Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling - straining credulity and neck tendons in the service of serious claptrap. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
A trite, incoherent and pretentious bomb. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleNeva Chonin
Visuals can't fill a spiritual vacuum, and Stay remains a pretty package that's empty on the inside. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Neither thrilling nor psychological, but it's chicly shot and edited and is pretty much art-directed to death. Read full review
More From This Movie

41 Critic Reviews

8.4 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL