The Fabelmans
Universal Pictures | Release Date: November 11, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 65 Critic Reviews
Positive:
60
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJan 26, 2023
The thing about Spielberg these days is he makes this stuff look easy. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 25, 2023
The Fabelmans left me with a floating feeling of happiness. Read full review
100
Total FilmJamie GrahamJan 23, 2023
While some might have preferred this story with its edges unsmoothed, The Fabelmans is better viewed as the tale of how Spielberg’s personal values inform his every artistic decision, and how he became who he is: The Greatest Showman On Earth. Read full review
100
EmpireAlex GodfreyJan 17, 2023
In two-and-a-half hours, a decade of Spielberg’s own life flies by. An autopsy of a marriage and a homage to invention, it’s a bittersweet piece of joy. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzNov 23, 2022
You think [Spielberg's] giving you everything and that it's all right there on the surface, but the movie lingers in the mind, and the longer it stays there, and the more times you re-watch it, the more you realize it's giving you something different from, and better than, what you saw the first time. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonNov 21, 2022
This is Spielberg’s most personal film, and it’s intriguing to watch him pay homage to the directors who made up his group of friends in the early 1970s. Read full review
100
ScreenCrushMatt SingerNov 11, 2022
I hope Spielberg makes 20 more movies. But if this is the last one he ever directed, it would be the perfect career capper: An origin story, a thesis statement, a love letter, and a cautionary tale. Like life, it is hilarious at times, and pitifully sad at others. From the first scene to the last, it had me leaning forward in my seat like Sammy Fabelman at The Greatest Show on Earth. Read full review
100
ABC NewsPeter TraversNov 11, 2022
Bring out the Oscars for the year’s best movie, a personal best from Steven Spielberg about his own coming of age as a teen torn between his love for movies and family (Michelle Williams is incandescent as his troubled mom). You won’t forget this hilarious and heartfelt classic in the making. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubTodd GilchristNov 10, 2022
The Fabelmans is a measured and incredibly intimate look at Spielberg’s upbringing as he developed his aptitude for storytelling through a medium that mesmerized him since the night he went to see The Greatest Show On Earth as a child. It also spotlights cinema as an extraordinary device that not only unveils powerful truths, but often shapes them as well. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSep 23, 2022
Immediately joining the first ranks of artists’ memoirs, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is both a vivid capturing of the auteur’s earliest flashes of filmmaking insight and a portrait, full of love yet unclouded by nostalgia, of the family that made him. Read full review
100
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 16, 2022
It’s gripping, visually mesmeric, boasts an exceptional, grounded script by Tony Kushner and is acted to the hilt. Read full review
100
Rolling StoneDavid FearSep 13, 2022
If the movie does adhere to his signature beats, and feature so many recognizable Spielbergisms, occasionally to its detriment, it’s still one of the most impressive, enlightening, vital things he’s ever done. Read full review
100
The PlaylistTomris LafflySep 11, 2022
It’s Spielberg’s most personal film, one that gorgeously revives the memories of his childhood and youth with a lavish sense of wistfulness and an aptly Hollywood-ized, fable-like touch. Read full review
100
ColliderRoss BonaimeSep 11, 2022
Spielberg has given us all so much magic over the course of our lives, and The Fabelmans becomes yet another Spielberg masterpiece, but this time, by showing us how this magic came to be in his own life. Read full review
100
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 11, 2022
Semi-autobiographical and dedicated to his late mom and dad, the film is a potent memory piece guided by remarkable performances from Michelle Williams and Paul Dano, who are asked to walk a delicate tonal tightrope, delivering a portrait of an imperfect marriage that’s heartbreaking in its tenderness. Read full review
95
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 11, 2022
Spielberg’s storytelling has plenty of humor and verve, but it has a devastating sense of self-awareness as well. In focusing on a boy who puts a camera between himself and the world, Spielberg essays both the power in that perspective, and the limitations. Read full review
91
The Film StageChristopher SchobertSep 11, 2022
The warm, witty Fabelmans is Spielberg at his most revealing, and watching him reflect on his past is downright extraordinary. Read full review
91
TheWrapSteve PondSep 11, 2022
It feels a little too light and even occasionally uncertain in the early going, but picks up steam, becomes deeper and more moving and absolutely nails the ending. Read full review
90
Film ThreatMichael Talbot-HaynesDec 23, 2022
The Fabelmans will take your expectations of the Spielberg brand and tie them to a rocket. It is engaging and compelling. I am still pondering it days later. If you love movies, you owe it to yourself to catch this on that same big screen that Sammy loves so much. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 15, 2022
Exceptionally well made, tougher than you'd think in its depictions of a troubled marriage and full of deep performances — it's outstanding. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 10, 2022
The Fabelmans is, as the title says, somewhat of a fable and wonderful in both large and small ways, even if Spielberg can’t help but soften the rougher, potentially lacerating edges. It’s what he does; it’s also what the audience expects of him, and he’s nothing if not obliging. Read full review
90
IGNRafael MotamayorSep 13, 2022
With a coming-of-age story that is universal in its portrayal of misunderstood artists and broken homes, but hyper-specific in its portrayal of the childhood that formed a legendary filmmaker, this is a therapy session turned into a hugely entertaining movie, aided by a fantastic cast, and one of John Williams' best scores in years. Read full review
90
PolygonRobert DanielsSep 12, 2022
The Fabelmans is Spielberg exercising his vast filmmaking knowledge to compose a story where his entire heart is stapled across the screen. It’s beautiful, evocative, enthralling blockbuster filmmaking, perfectly tuned to remind viewers of the power that can reside within a movie. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 12, 2022
Like all great storytellers, Spielberg knows the value — the beauty — of artifice and embellishment, as well as the permeability of truth and fiction. The Fabelmans is as slick, transporting and painstakingly orchestrated as anything in his filmography, and also as funny, stirring and implacably sad. Read full review
90
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSep 10, 2022
With The Fabelmans, Spielberg is grappling with his own mythology, and re-examining it, too. This isn't exactly how Spielberg's life unfolded; it's the Hollywood version, and that's fitting.  Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 1, 2022
Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is not a love letter to the magic of the movies. It’s a nice note to more tactile matters of craft—how to thread a reel of film into a projector, for instance. And yet, in the process of paying attention to such details, The Fabelmans manages something even more specific than love: a deeply personal ardency for both how and why movies are made. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 23, 2022
The Fabelmans is a movie about being seen — and about learning to see. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 23, 2022
This filmmaker has earned the right to make a movie about why he makes movies the way he does. And with Williams and Dano, especially, he gets performances that can match the technique. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 22, 2022
Typical Spielberg. Pulling on multiple heartstrings at the same time, to great effect. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 21, 2022
The Fabelmans does it all, with an expansive spirit and that quintessential Spielbergian combination of honesty and sentiment. It tells the truth, at a honeyed, ameliorating slant. Read full review
84
Paste MagazineJacob OllerNov 28, 2022
It’d be disrespectful to those left behind if you gave your art anything but your best shot. The Fabelmans makes the bargain look painful, self-centered and utterly joyful—a genius embracing his regrets and in so doing, reminding us of how lucky we are that we all pay some version of this price, for ourselves and for one another. Read full review
83
Original-CinKaren GordonNov 23, 2022
Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, which won the coveted People’s Choice award at the most recent Toronto International Film Festival, is a warm and easygoing family drama and coming-of-age story based on the director’s life. But you’re out of luck if you’re looking for deep insights into how a boy seized by movies, grew up to be one of the most successful directors in Hollywood. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 11, 2022
Because it's Spielberg, it's all beautifully, meticulously rendered, and not a little glazed in wistful sentiment: an infinitely tender, sometimes misty ode to the people who raised him and the singular passion for cinema that shaped him. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 11, 2022
I’d say this playful yet nakedly personal coming-of-auteur epic was trying to split the difference between memoir and crowdpleaser, but it seems even more determined to reconcile the two: What else would Steven Spielberg’s ultimate divorce movie be about if not the hope for some kind of reconciliation? Read full review
80
NMEAlex FloodJan 27, 2023
The great storyteller has been careful in interviews to remind us The Fabelmans is only semi-autobiographical, but everything cuts so deep that you’re left wondering if Spielberg left any of the truth out at all. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJan 25, 2023
The result is neither as sentimental nor as moving – if those adjectives can be separated – as the director’s more personal 20th century films. It does, however, feel complete in itself. Cleanly shot. Immaculately performed. And, no, you probably don’t need to know Spielberg from Carlsberg to have a good time. Read full review
80
Little White LiesHannah StrongJan 25, 2023
The Fabelmans clearly comes from a place of deep sincerity – while it might not be a particularly “deep” film, it is absolutely the Spielberg film about Becoming Spielberg that we’ve been waiting for, echoing the world of child-like wonder and the tenacity to manifest dreams that his whole career has centred around. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyJan 23, 2023
Spielberg’s motivation for The Fabelmans has little to do with cementing his own myth – it’s a more tender, more bittersweet journey towards the realisation that, though the camera never lies, what it shows us can be hard to swallow. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJan 3, 2023
Spielberg gets the chance to do something he’s never done before and make a miniature high-school film full of giddy subversions and emotional truths. Read full review
80
We Got This CoveredAlejandra MartinezNov 29, 2022
The Fabelmans is a compelling family portrait, a love letter to filmmaking, and a revealing look inside the heart of one of America’s great directors. It’s well worth watching, just to see Spielberg at his most tender and personal. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensNov 16, 2022
Embedded in this seeming valentine to the movies is something pricklier, sadder, and smarter. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 14, 2022
The Fabelmans may look nice ’n’ easy as it swings along, with a pile of laughs to cushion the ride, and a nifty visual gag in the closing seconds, but take care. Here is a film that is touched with the madness of love. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithNov 11, 2022
Understanding that a knockout finish is the most important element, Mr. Spielberg delivers spectacularly in a scene drawn from a real-life meeting. He puts a mischievous twist on his well-earned reputation for sentimental endings by dramatizing an encounter with one of the gods of celluloid. Read full review
80
UproxxMike RyanSep 14, 2022
After you see The Fabelmans you realize this man will never stop making movies. It truly is his life. And, here, he is inviting us in to see how and why that all happened. Read full review
80
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 12, 2022
Not all memoir is generous. It can be intriguingly solipsistic, or maddeningly vain. But because there’s always been a curious blankness to Spielberg’s public persona—cheerful and engaged but never quite known—The Fabelmans does feel like something of a gift. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 11, 2022
Spielberg’s a born storyteller, and these are arguably his most precious stories. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 22, 2022
While the film provides many invaluable insights into Spielberg’s technical and thematic tropes that can be seen repeated throughout his career, the filmmaker also burnishes aspects of his life story and leaves out chunks of years to create what is inevitably a self-indulgent yet delightful origin story, appropriately called The Fabelmans. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 23, 2022
It’s a magical movie memoir of the making of a movie-maker, with Spielbergian sparks of delight and inspiration, and heaping helpings of Spielberg sentiment. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 22, 2022
Unsurprisingly, Spielbergian wonder is sprinkled throughout the episodic Fabelmans. The movie starts out slow, though when the filmmaker gets to Sammy’s high school days, he finds that signature electricity so apparent in his blockbuster career. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 22, 2022
So The Fabelmans is entertaining enough, but perhaps what’s best about it is that Spielberg got it out of his system. After this, he won’t ever need to make a film about himself or his parents again. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 22, 2022
The Fabelmans isn’t likely to go down as “Great Spielberg” or even “Very Good Spielberg” but it’s a warm, enjoyable plunge into the 1950s and 1960s. Read full review
75
CNNBrian LowryNov 11, 2022
It’s a deeply personal chronicle from one of cinema’s greatest talents, yielding a movie that features wonderful moments within a somewhat scattered narrative. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedNov 11, 2022
In my opinion, Mr. Spielberg’s life story is always slickly directed, professionally written (a collaborative effort by the director and prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner) and admirably acted by an appealing cast, but only intermittently interesting and less than what I’d call mesmerizing. Read full review
75
ConsequenceErin BradySep 12, 2022
It might not become anyone’s favorite Spielberg flick, but it will certainly stick with you long after you watch it. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaSep 12, 2022
The Fabelmans is a provocative investigation of the cinematic medium from one of its great masters. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 16, 2022
For all its tenderness, empathy, warmth, and verve, The Fabelmans has the feel of mythmaking—a feature-length promotional video for an authorized biography of a filmmaker who, if far from self-made, is in any case self-propelled. What’s missing is a sense of history. Read full review
70
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 11, 2022
Spielberg is such a supersleek craftsman that what might have been intended as a deep dive instead comes across for the most part as a sprightly gloss. Read full review
70
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiSep 16, 2022
There's an air of tranquility about it and Spielberg does well to balance a few comedic moments with a whole lot of heart. Even the more dramatic moments are depicted with patience and warmth. It's as if Spielberg is softly wading through his own memories, pulling open the doors to see each one with a lot of light and love in tow. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreSep 15, 2022
The most interesting parts of this baggy, inevitably indulgent, and often spectacular work find him grappling with the idea of putting himself onscreen versus adapting part of his life into the stuff of a movie. Read full review
67
UproxxVince ManciniDec 22, 2022
Ever the canny salesman, The Fabelmans is mostly a clever mix of things the audience has seen and expects, with enough new to tantalize without scaring anyone off. It’s nice to see Spielberg finally giving us a bit of himself, even if it could be more. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeJan 30, 2023
If you’re looking for a film that explains where the Spielbergian tropes you know and love came from, then The Fabelmans is for you. Read full review
60
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 23, 2022
The Fabelmans contains reels’ worth of beauty and wit, all delivered with the honest and enthusiastic drive to entertain that has become Spielberg’s signature. But you will learn more about Steven Spielberg by watching almost any other Steven Spielberg film. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 11, 2022
There remains a remove though still, Spielberg giving us a slightly too stage-managed version of himself and his family, some gristle missing from the darkest moments. Read full review
50
The Associated PressMark KennedyNov 8, 2022
The focus sometimes gets a bit blurry, to be honest and the whole thing often doesn’t add up to much. Read full review
40
CineVueSara MericanJan 25, 2023
As this semi-autobiographical film plods on, there is an unshakeable sense that in reaching for the stars, The Fabelmans instead lands somewhere more mediocre and disappointing. Read full review
More From This Movie

85 Critic Reviews

7.3 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL