Tetris
Apple TV+ | Release Date: March 24, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
19
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The AtlanticShirley LiApr 11, 2023
Like a frustrated player speeding up the falling blocks to end the game, the film haphazardly stacks ideas atop one another until, well, it’s a relief when it’s over. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Staff (Not Credited)Apr 5, 2023
Ultimately, if the film is entertaining – and it is, sporadically at least – it’s as much to do with the reliably engaging Taron Egerton in the central role of embattled businessman Henk Rogers, as it is with the wiretaps, honey traps and sneering Soviet security forces. Read full review
60
PolygonMichael McWhertorApr 4, 2023
Despite Baird and Pink’s best attempts at cinematic tension and surprise twists, this story plays better elsewhere, in the retellings with a firmer grip on reality. Read full review
60
NMEPaul BradshawApr 2, 2023
Tetris tells a cracking story, but it suffers from The Big Short effect – the thinking that no mildly complicated script is palatable without throwing every gimmick possible at it. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerApr 2, 2023
The lead performers bring a lot of energy to the material, and for a while Tetris hums along as part The Social Network and part Ocean’s 11, at least until a final act that collapses under the weight of an action sequence so ludicrous it feels like it belongs in a parody of bad Hollywood biopics. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 31, 2023
There is much rushing to little purpose. Too many dull contractual glitches get in the way of the enthusiastic performances. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 27, 2023
It makes for an entertaining movie, one you can tell is glossing over some details and minutiae. That's probably a good thing overall, but that, and an inability to nail down a consistent tone, leaves it feeling a little incomplete. Read full review
60
IGNMatt DonatoMar 23, 2023
Tetris tries its best to make a story about international video game rights into something infinitely more thrilling, with a smidge better than mixed results. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeMar 16, 2023
Tetris finds its fun in the details of contracts and the specifics of deal-making, realising that even when it’s not on a screen in your hands, it’s all one big game. Read full review
60
EmpireDan JolinMar 16, 2023
While it never quite swims beyond the shallows of its money-minded plot, this fictionalised account of the licensing battle over hit puzzle game Tetris is, for the most part, absorbing and exuberant. Read full review
58
The PlaylistMatthew MonagleMar 16, 2023
There’s a lot of potential in a legal thriller set in the days before German reunification and the end of the Cold War, just as there’s potential in a colorful heist movie that upends the formula and makes the illegal legal. But Tetris fails to thread a particularly tricky needle, resulting in a movie that feels more like a failed ‘90s blockbuster than anything else. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandMar 15, 2023
It’s simultaneously too much and too little..., but it is a wacky bit of history that is entertaining in fits and starts. No, not all the pieces fit together, and it certainly doesn’t speed up as the game winds on (something it might have done well to emulate from the game itself), but it’s got players worth rooting for and a story that keeps leveling up. It won’t stick in your brain like the game (who doesn’t still see those little blocks floating ever-downward?), but what else possibly could? Read full review
50
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsMar 31, 2023
There’s no real moral centre to the film – it’s a depth-free caper which only demonstrates negligible interest in any wider ramifications of these types of big money boardroom IP raids. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMar 29, 2023
The mix of busy comic exaggeration, affectionate ’80s nostalgia trip and gloomy mid-perestroika history lesson never comes together. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 28, 2023
Tetris holds an audience’s attention until the finish, without ever quite commanding it. To some degree, Noah Pink’s screenplay deserves credit for taking an arcane business story and rendering it entertaining. But the story gets so extreme and unlikely in the movie’s last half hour that it becomes easy to separate fact from fiction. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoMar 16, 2023
It's so repetitive that it will make you want to pick up your phone while it’s playing on Apple TV. You should play Tetris. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 15, 2023
Taron Egerton brings a desperate energy to his role as one of those entrepreneurs who discovers how business was conducted behind the Iron Curtain. But director Jon S. Baird fumbles the narrative’s tricky tonal balance, resulting in a glib, convoluted film that is never as engrossing as the game these characters are fighting over. Read full review
50
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannMar 15, 2023
Tetris is a serviceable adaptation, but for all its visual flair and 80s nostalgia, there's still something missing when all the pieces come together. Read full review
40
TheWrapSimon AbramsMar 15, 2023
Hokey and unconvincing, “Tetris” skims the surface of a genuinely curious “true story” thriller, which too often plays out like a Disney-ified version of “The Social Network.” Read full review
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