Superbad
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: August 17, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
For pure laughs, for the experience of just sitting in a chair and breaking up every minute or so, Superbad is 2007's most successful comedy. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Might be the most provocative teen sex comedy ever made; it is certainly one of the most convulsively funny. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
As a "Revenge of the Nerds" redux, Superbad isn't perfect. But it's super close. Read full review
90
The New YorkerDavid Denby
An uproarious and touching picture. Read full review
90
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Superbad is duly ribald and often achingly funny, brewed from the now-familiar Apatow house blend of go-for-broke slapstick and instantly quotable, potty-mouthed dialogue. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
What's most memorable, most striking about Superbad is the canny evocation of male friendship in all its richness and complexity. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It helps that the fun doesn't stop. It helps even more that the pitch-perfect script doesn’t step out of character for a joke. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is astonishingly foul-mouthed, but in a fluent, confident way where the point isn't the dirty words, but the flow and rhythm, and the deep, sad yearning they represent. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
You don't have to be a teenager to appreciate the raunchy humor and the uninhibited overkill of Seth's porn-obsessed chatter, though it probably helps to be a guy. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
A funny, boozy, ramshackle party. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
What with everyone so focused on the raunchiness, it comes as a complete surprise to find that Superbad is in fact a love story. Read full review
80
Film ThreatMichael Ferraro
Easily one of the funniest comedies of the year and one you wouldn’t mind seeing again and again. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleShawn Badgley
Mostly Superbad is as soulful and funky as its soundtrack. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
What if Quentin Tarantino collaborated with John Hughes on a teen comedy? Superbad is a decent approximation of what the result might be. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Superbad is cute if you like guys who aren't even remotely bad, in a coming-of-age tale so old-fashioned the girls might just as well be wearing bloomers. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
In this teen-boy universe, sex is everywhere and nowhere, it's oozing out of every pop culture pore and every other insane boast, yet the idea of figuring out how to talk to girls without turning into a yutz remains elusive. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda Stasi
Super-vulgar, ridiculously sophomoric, horribly nasty and so hilarious you’ll probably squirt Diet Coke out of your nose within the first 20 minutes. Read full review
75
PremiereEric Alt
Superbad is just a great time, plain and simple. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Side-splitting laughter, along with some powerful cringing, are likely to be audiences' dominant reactions. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
It's mostly very crude, often very funny and a little bit smarter than you might otherwise think. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The movie is best when everything is up in the air. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Superbad never forgets the lesson one learns when looking back on one's awkward youth: Cool isn't just where society dictates; it is also where you find it. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
There is a hint of sentimentality among the pals at the end, but not enough to offset the film's harmless combination of camaraderie and wished-for - oh, how they wish for it - debauchery. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Intermittently hilarious if also interminable. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Filled with nasty, nasty stuff. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterStephen Farber
Some of the patter is funny, but the movie lacks the clever plot developments and the character nuances of a classic like "American Graffiti." And it's missing the belly laughs of earlier raunchfests "American Pie" and "There's Something About Mary." Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The bawdy jokes score big points, but it's the rueful acknowledgement of adolescent embarrassment and humiliation that most distinguishes Superbad, another ultra-raunchy and commercial sex comedy from the Judd Apatow laugh factory. Read full review
70
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Christopher Mintz-Plasse steals the movie in his screen debut as a nerd di tutti nerds, a kid whose fake I.D. reads "McLovin." Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Horny is as horny does in the sweetly absurd high school comedy Superbad. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The movie loses credibility with the arrival of Rogen and Bill Hader as two uniformed patrolmen who are drunker and crazier than any high schooler could ever get, but the variety of complications thrown at the three pubescent heroes raises this a cut above most raunchy comedies. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Its pleasures and charms lie in its very crudeness, in the way the characters' thoughts begin in their d---s and spill out of their mouths, completely bypassing their brains. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Not super, but not bad, the teen comedy, Superbad, is another comic dance across the hormonal minefield of late high school. Read full review
60
SlateDana Stevens
As lurching, awkward, and dirty-minded as the three horny man-boys at its center--but not, in the end, quite as funny or endearing. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
As films about the young and the horny go, I preferred the smarter approach director Jeffrey Blitz takes in "Rocket Science." Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Superbad simply isn't. It isn't super, as it intersperses crudely funny gags with an equal number of dry spots. It isn't ever truly bad, because even the lame segments pass quickly. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
To find that valuable truth, you have to dig through an avalanche of d--- jokes and strenuous slapstick. Read full review
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