The End
Neon | Release Date: December 6, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
16
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 8, 2024
A mixture of domestic drama, apocalyptic fable and old-fashioned (and unironic) Hollywood musical, The End is an audacious and frequently enrapturing experience, with superb performances at its emotional heart. Read full review
91
The Film StageCaleb HammondSep 7, 2024
The End carries that rare sense of a lack of compromise––a fully realized world from a visionary director. It’s exhilarating to simply exist in this world that Oppenheimer and his team (including co-writer Rasmus Heisterberg) craft. Read full review
91
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 31, 2024
There’s a thin line between kindness and complicity, and “The End” achieves its sneakily immense power by dancing all over it with an ambivalence that Oppenheimer’s previous work never allowed for. Read full review
90
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonDec 5, 2024
The End is about one version of the end of the world, and about how the people who could have prevented it might feel when they get there. But to watch it is to think about yourself, at least if you have a conscience, and to ponder the sort of cognitive dissonance you live with every day. Read full review
90
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 12, 2024
With his maiden foray into drama, the writer/director continues to prove himself one of modern cinema’s true greats. Read full review
85
PolygonSiddhant AdlakhaSep 17, 2024
The result is a claustrophobic introspection into guilt and remorse, which hardly sounds like fitting material for a grandiose movie musical. But Oppenheimer’s focused approach to human drama makes it sing. Read full review
83
Original-CinChris KnightDec 13, 2024
The End may literally be a little tone deaf, but it is not morally senseless. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 27, 2025
There’s no room for the sentimental here. No Grinch hearts suddenly grow three sizes. That’s not how it works in the real world, and Oppenheimer is interested instead in the smaller, more subtle shifts. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMar 26, 2025
If any recent release has the potential to become a cult classic it is this melodic warning from beneath the earth. Read full review
76
TheWrapSteve PondSep 1, 2024
In truth, the movie can be pretty ridiculous, too, with its wild ambition sometimes coming across as a little foolhardy. But overreaching might be the whole point of The End, which offers an end-times prescription for living: Hold the fantasy together as long as you can. And when in doubt, sing. Read full review
70
Little White LiesKatherine McLaughlinApr 2, 2025
Where the film really sings, however, is in its depiction of buried guilt and false hope. The beating heart of it develops through MacKay’s performance of pure naivety and his burgeoning relationship with Ingram’s Girl. Read full review
70
ColliderJason GorberSep 12, 2024
The End paradoxically feels ornamental and operatic while at the same time almost iconographic in its simplicity. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 9, 2024
What remains engaging throughout are the carefully textured performances—MacKay’s study of repressed energy and Ingram’s mix of wariness and gratitude are particular highlights—and the film’s myriad aesthetic graces. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeSep 1, 2024
The End requires complete submission to the off-kilter rules that govern this family and to Oppenheimer’s ambitions to radicalize the musical genre. It’s an admirable if uneven endeavor. Read full review
63
Washington PostTy BurrDec 12, 2024
Oppenheimer has made a chamber play of and for the damned, and while it never fully escapes the laboratory of ideas, it shows a daring and lethally sharp creative mind at work. More, please. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyDec 6, 2024
The experiment of "The End" may not entirely work, but it is good that it exists. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 5, 2024
Clearly, Oppenheimer is an ambitious and courageous filmmaker – his chilling documentaries alone are enough to ensure his place in the pantheon. But so much of The End prioritizes purpose over execution, with the result stretched out over interminable lengths. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineMark HansonAug 31, 2024
Perhaps the script is deliberately harking back to a storytelling mode that was characteristic of Hollywood cinema for dramatic effect, but the musical aspect, while a neat gimmick, isn’t memorable or cohesive enough to make the homage, well, sing. Read full review
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