The Birds
Universal Pictures | Release Date: March 29, 1963 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
90
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Jaws before the world was ready, Hitch’s much misappreciated follow-up to Psycho is arguably the greatest of all disaster films—a triumph of special effects, as well as the fountainhead of what has become known as gross-out horror. Read full review
100
EmpireAngie Errigo
A mysterious army of enemies, with no suggested motive and, what's worse, they're your friendly garden crows. Clamps itself to your recollection and doesn't let go. Read full review
100
EmpireKim Newman
Genuinely disturbing thriller classic from the master of suspense. Read full review
100
The GuardianXan Brooks
The essential Hitchcock movie, the purest and most confident, a brilliant distillation of the themes that had fueled him ever since he sent the lodger creeping to his upstairs room. Read full review
100
The TelegraphAlastair Sooke
The true genius of the film, based on a 1952 short story by Daphne du Maurier, is the way Hitchcock makes the malevolent birds seem like manifestations of his characters' mental unease. Read full review
100
Time Out LondonTom Milne
This is Hitchcock at his best. Full of subterranean hints as to the ways in which people cage each other, it's fierce and Freudian as well as great cinematic fun. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
As emblems of sexual tension, divine retribution, meaningless chaos, metaphysical inversion, and aching human guilt, his attacking birds acquire a metaphorical complexity and slipperiness worthy of Melville. Tippi Hedren's lead performance is still open to controversy, but her evident stage fright is put to sublimely Hitchcockian uses. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Hailed as one of Hitchcock's masterpieces by some and despised by others, The Birds is certainly among the director's more complex and fascinating works. Read full review
100
Village VoiceAndrew Sarris
The Birds is here, and what a joy to behold a self-contained movie which does not feed parasitically on outside cultural references—Chekhov, Synge, O’Neill, Genet, Behan, Melville, or what have you. Drawing from the relatively invisible literary talents of Daphne DuMaurier and Evan Hunter, Alfred Hitchcock has fashioned a major work of cinematic art, and cinematic is the operative term here, not literary or sociological. Read full review
91
ColliderEmily Bernard
Despite some missed payoffs for rich storylines introduced early on, The Birds more than earns its legendary status, with its beautiful direction, sharp performances, and an inventive and metaphorical premise. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterJames Powers
Alfred Hitchcock has concocted an elaborate tease in The Birds, as if to prove that suspense and thrills can be induced as much by the expectation of horror as by horror itself. Read full review
90
The New York TimesBosley Crowther
Making a terrifying menace out of what is assumed to be one of nature's most innocent creatures and one of man's most melodious friends, Mr. Hitchcock and his associates have constructed a horror film that should raise the hackles on the most courageous and put goose-pimples on the toughest hide. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
If this works at all it’s because of the sound design: the cacophony of squawks and flapping over the opening credits, followed by incessant tapping, screeching, chirping, fluttering – sometimes in scenes where no birds are present. And then the occasional shock of silence, which is eerier still. Read full review
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