Stowaway
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): April 22, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 22, 2021
Penna and his co-writer Ryan Morrison handle this existentially challenging material with grace, and Kendrick, Collette, Kim and Anderson deliver equally impactful, intense performances. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlex SavelievMay 3, 2021
Rather unexpectedly, the result is gripping and immersive, bolstered by a committed cast and some remarkable visuals. Read full review
80
IGNRobert DanielsApr 22, 2021
Stowaway is shrewd in its decision-making and even better in its execution. Read full review
75
The PlaylistAsher LubertoApr 30, 2021
Stowaway is surprisingly decent despite the drag near the finale. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussApr 22, 2021
If you can buy the film’s unlikely core premise, you’ll be rewarded with persuasive speculative fiction in all its other aspects. Penna and company make it easy for audiences to do that, while putting four people whom they’ll come to really care about through all kinds of hell. Read full review
75
ObserverNoah BerlatskyApr 22, 2021
Empathy and compassion aren’t vulnerabilities in this narrative. They’re resources, with which you can defy the cold cosmos — though not without cost. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloApr 22, 2021
The film is strongest when simply exploring the terrible notion of triage among the healthy, with everyone involved fully aware of which individual will be deemed the most expendable. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 23, 2021
The film’s central tension, between hand-wavingly vague science and the contagious immediacy of the characters’ emotions, becomes most pronounced during the final act, which is somehow both impressively suspenseful and frustratingly confusing. Still, Stowaway is never boring, even as it leaves you with a million unanswered space questions. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanApr 22, 2021
Joe Penna knows how to make a movie that holds you without being pushy about it. His voice as a filmmaker comes through, even in a genre as studded with commercial tropes as this one. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekApr 22, 2021
Stowaway pulls plenty of pages from the generic space-movie handbook, but it still builds a mood of dread and contemplative ennui, finding its resolution in a final, somber shot. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckApr 22, 2021
The strength of the ensemble helps give the proceedings further dramatic resonance, with the performers providing subtle emotional depths that keep us firmly invested in the characters' plight. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJessica KiangApr 22, 2021
For the most part, aside from a slightly slack start, and its stirring but simplistic ending, that kind of well-researched procedural detail is what makes Penna’s film such an engrossing and surprisingly touching addition to a genre already bursting with splashier, more extravagant and more overtly sentimental titles. Read full review
67
UproxxVince ManciniApr 23, 2021
It’s more competent than inspired, however, with skillfully shot action but not much in the way of bold choices. It’s compelling enough while it lasts, but all but guaranteed to vanish from memory the instant the credits roll. Read full review
67
ConsequenceLauren J. CoatesApr 22, 2021
Though it often feels like the safest, most predictable version of the film we could’ve gotten, Stowaway is a tense, chilling space thriller that coasts to victory on the strength of its premise and the believability of its cast. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 6, 2021
There’s real suspense in the central dilemma and in the Hail Mary efforts to think and work their way out of this. But thin character development and slow pacing render this slower and soapier than one would wish. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireApr 22, 2021
The makings are all there for a fascinating character study, which Stowaway more closely resembles than a sci-fi thriller. But the fact that we know so little about these people beyond a few basic traits makes it difficult for us to feel as emotionally invested as we should in their fate. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzApr 22, 2021
Whenever the story’s central tension threatens to get interesting and complicated, the filmmakers deflate it in the most obvious of ways. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeApr 22, 2021
The focus on the job at hand works until it doesn’t as with just the slightest of characterisation, we’re invested in the problem rather than those solving it and the grip of the first two acts loosens as the finale beckons. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandApr 22, 2021
A nerve-shredding space thriller that starts strong before falling prey to blunter dramatic twists, few of which are as thrilling as the original idea that sets everything in motion. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonApr 22, 2021
What ultimately hampers the film is that, once the agonising dilemma is introduced, the script quickly becomes a standard survival-in-space saga, recalling everything from Gravity to The Midnight Sky. The performances are nicely modulated, though, resisting the story’s inherently melodramatic qualities and instead focusing on trying to solve the problem at hand. Read full review
50
CNNBrian LowryApr 22, 2021
More an examination of human nature than a thriller, the space-faring movie deals with weighty issues but doesn't possess much pizzazz or gravity, making Netflix the logical home for its launch. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 22, 2021
It’s a matter of pacing and choices, what Penna chooses to focus on and what he ignores. He’s got all the elements of a good movie right in front of him. He just never puts all the pieces together. Read full review
40
The New York TimesLena WilsonApr 22, 2021
For all the empathy it expects of its viewers — every character cries onscreen at least once — the film is troublingly removed from human reality. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiApr 22, 2021
By paring their story down so much, the filmmakers only end up highlighting just how little it contains. Read full review
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