The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Attains a level of quiet grace. It's too bad that I can barely remember the movie after only a week. Nothing lasts, indeed. Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
It's so almost moving -- a meticulously crafted mechanical bird -- that it nearly feels like the real thing. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
Pitt's great in character roles, as a comic grotesque or an unrepentant scoundrel. (See Burn After Reading or, for that matter, Fight Club.) But as a passive, introspective leading man like Benjamin, he's just dull. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Realized through old-fashioned camera mastery and newfangled special effects, it’s a stunning technical accomplishment, but one seemingly designed only to broadcast banal sentiments, when it says anything at all. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
As enervating as it is long -- and at 2 hours and 47 minutes it is quite long -- this version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald fantasy short story is a baffling project, an endurance test of a movie that feels like it was made on a dare. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Often astonishingly beautiful, but in a way that's the problem: You wonder what visionaries such as Tim Burton or Michel Gondry might have done with the material. As it is, "Benjamin Button" is little more than "Gump" by way of "Dorian Gray." It plays too safe when it should be letting its freak flag fly. Read full review
50
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Benjamin Button is pretty much just "Gump" with better cinematography. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Based flimsily on a minor F. Scott Fitzgerald story, it's an anecdote stretched to would-be epic proportions. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Everything that was sharp in the original text has been rounded and buffed. Read full review
40
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Benjamin Button is to the first half of the 20th century what "Gump" was to the second -- a panorama of the American experience as seen from the perspective of a wide-eyed Candide. Here as there, Roth reduces our complex times to a parade of shockingly straight-faced kitsch. Read full review
More From This Movie

70 Critic Reviews

7.4 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 68 Crime 101
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL