The Actor
Neon | Release Date: March 14, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisMar 13, 2025
Johnson and Stephen Cooney have shaped an unsettling, sorrowful journey from damage to a kind of deliverance. Read full review
80
ColliderRoss BonaimeMar 11, 2025
The Actor is a film about discovering who you truly are, and it also reveals that Johnson is a captivating, promising filmmaker who hopefully won’t wait another decade to make his next film. Read full review
80
TheWrapChase HutchinsonMar 11, 2025
A captivating portrait of a man who can’t seem to remember who he is and may not ever be able to, Duke Johnson’s live-action feature debut is an enrapturing film that speaks in this language of half-remembered dreams before descending into something closer to a nightmare. Read full review
80
Film ThreatMichael Talbot-HaynesApr 19, 2024
The Actor shows how much fun there is in the indie sphere for regional values mayhem to be had. Read full review
75
The Film StageLuke HicksMar 17, 2025
The movie looks amazing, it’s often intriguing, the style is evocative, and it should be distinct from Kaufman’s work. But in the ways that it’s similar, there’s less to be discovered––the ghost of revelation where it feels revelation could be. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNatalia KeoganMar 14, 2025
Instead of unraveling into intelligent abstraction, Johnson’s film unfortunately leans into tidy conventionality. As a result, it might fail to make a lasting impression on the annals of cinematic memory. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 10, 2025
Cuttingly funny at times, The Actor isn’t much interested in answering any of those questions, but this semi-inert death trip of a film teases a certain pull from its cosmic uncertainty. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoMar 14, 2025
It’s an undeniably haunting piece of work, a story that’s out of place and time in a world that’s like our own but not quite. Rod Serling would have dug it. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonMar 12, 2025
It’s confounding that Johnson ignores the book’s brutal existentialism. But it’s equally fascinating that other parts of the story get their hooks in him. A novel — any piece of art, really — functions like a dream. You grab onto the bits that resonate. It’s why people can leave the same movie with totally different interpretations. Read full review
55
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMar 13, 2025
Burdened by a hazy and mannered style that drains it of urgency and feeling, it’s a self-conscious curio that’s less dreamy than dreary. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeMar 11, 2025
The Actor can be fun to think about, but hard to stay connected to. Johnson’s film works on an intellectual level — batting around questions about how identity is constructed — but the director struggles to translate the stakes of those questions. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesMar 14, 2025
While Mr. Holland is a clear talent with a screen presence at once natural and vivid, his character is passive to the point of emptiness. Any interesting resonances that might have been found in the idea of an actor having to relearn his own character, so to speak, are unfortunately absent here. Read full review
40
VarietyRyan SwenMar 11, 2025
The pat nature of its surprisingly sentimental conclusion only highlights the degree to which Johnson’s directorial interventions feel like attempts to gild the lily, registering as surface-level oddities deployed in a half-successful attempt to replace the psychological insight needed to truly explore identity in such an extreme scenario. Read full review
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