The Fault in Our Stars
Fox 2000 Pictures | Release Date: June 6, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 45 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 5, 2014
Director Josh Boone does a wonderful job of celebrating the sentimentality without shying away from the tough moments. The pacing, music and editing are all first-rate. Read full review
91
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJun 5, 2014
The Fault in Our Stars beautifully captures the hesitancy, shyness masked by outward confidence, feelings of unworthiness and quiet intensity of teenagers in love. Read full review
90
TheWrapDiane GarrettJun 3, 2014
The Fault in Our Stars may not show the true messiness of cancer, but it does grapple with death and the ability to survive great loss. Maybe that's enough truth for one movie. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigJun 4, 2014
The movie is well-written, well-acted, acerbic, funny and wisely observed. Fans of the book will be glad to hear it is faithful to Green's tale. Read full review
83
HitfixDrew McWeenyJun 5, 2014
The details are what matters, and the script by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, adapted from the well-loved novel by John Green, is very smart and fairly unsentimental, which works to the material's advantage. Read full review
83
The PlaylistKimber MyersJun 4, 2014
The Fault in Our Stars wins points for being more complex and stylish than most similar films feel they need to be. Most movies with this target audience are maudlin and manipulative, but Boone's film never feels like it's trying too hard to win our tears—or our laughter. Read full review
80
EmpireAnna SmithJun 16, 2014
Despite a few missteps this is a spirited, touching romance and Shailene Woodley’s best performance yet. Divergent fans after a weepie need look no further. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJun 10, 2014
Though supported by Woodley’s subtle narration, The Fault in Our Stars is relentlessly outward. That’s part of the book’s inspiring touch, and even if some of the supporting cast comes off as merely functional onscreen, the core of the tragedy comes to life in a heartbreaking way. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 5, 2014
When the time comes for suffering, the pain of watching her is mingled with the pleasure of a performance that transcends contrivance. This young actress is the real, heart-piercing thing. Read full review
80
TimeRichard CorlissJun 5, 2014
Hazel and Augustus will live in film lore because of the young actors who play them. Read full review
80
The GuardianTom ShoneJun 5, 2014
The film works on only one level, but so completely on that level that the rest doesn’t seem to matter: Woodley and Egort have terrific chemistry. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJun 5, 2014
The layered, tuned-in adaptation by Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter avoids calculated sentiment. Read full review
80
The DissolveTasha RobinsonJun 5, 2014
While The Fault In Our Stars is more pastel watercolor than hard-edged drama, it’s still hugely warm and winning, thanks in large part to Boone’s unfussy, wistful direction. Read full review
79
Film.comKate ErblandJun 3, 2014
The film has enough charm and humor to keep it appealing to a wide audience, and dumbing things down doesn’t feel particularly smart or canny, and proves to be a minor distraction to an otherwise majorly entertaining feature. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJun 4, 2014
Elgort’s performance is more mannered than Woodley’s open-faced, direct line to the heart, but it works. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJun 6, 2014
Maybe it's generational: In a movie about teens, it's the teens who should rule. And they do. With certainty. With laughter. And with tears - buckets and buckets. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 6, 2014
The ultimate feel-good movie about feeling bad. And within those limits, it succeeds all too well. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 5, 2014
The acting is top-notch, the characters are three-dimensional, and the dialogue is sharp and witty. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie OgleJun 5, 2014
Best of all, the film never makes its characters into stoic or tragic heroes, choosing instead to highlight what makes them human — their hopes, their fears, their anger, the way they learn to live with knowing they’re going to die. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 5, 2014
Green made the wise choice to be funny in telling his sad story. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 5, 2014
It's nothing you'd ever want to put yourself through twice, and yet it's effective in the moment. Shrewdly prefabricated and yet lovingly assembled, it is, in short, the most beautifully made cynical thing I've ever seen. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 5, 2014
A wise, warm, funny and touching romantic drama. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jun 4, 2014
Good movies are made out of great books all the time, and to fault Fault for not living up to its inspiration isn’t much more fair than dismissing the novel on the grounds that it sounds, superficially, like "Love Story" for millennials. As with infinities, some successes are just bigger than others. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedJun 4, 2014
You get compassion and intelligence instead of cracker-barrel homilies. And you get mesmerizing performances. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 4, 2014
I couldn't help wondering what kind of spiky unpredictability a "Say Anything" - era John Cusack would have brought to the character — with or without the requisite Peter Gabriel song. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJun 6, 2014
What sustains the film through the rockier times are its challenging themes, offering real issues for the young protagonists to wrestle with, rather than whether anyone will be carded trying to buy beer. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 5, 2014
The film does, however, have the best weapon in the world against the perception of slickness: an actress without a smidgen of actressiness. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 4, 2014
The Fault in Our Stars is manipulative as can be, pulling out all the stops — kids with cancer — in its attempt to bring the tears. And you know what? It works. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJustin LoweJun 3, 2014
The greatest strengths of the film clearly come from Green’s novel, which resolutely refuses to become a cliched cancer drama, creating instead two vibrant, believable young characters. Read full review
70
VarietyAndrew BarkerJun 3, 2014
Director Josh Boone is hardly the most distinctive cinematic stylist, but he’s smart enough to let his scenes linger for a few beats longer than most mainstream directors would, and seems to trust his actors to carry their own dramatic weight. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianJeff BakerJun 6, 2014
The fault is not in the stars -- they're fine -- it's in the way they're put through what amounts to emotional overkill. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnJun 4, 2014
Boone’s unobtrusive style takes cues from the subdued nature of the material, but there’s little about the movie that makes the filmmaking stand out. Instead, it derives its chief strengths from a series of efforts to take the drama seriously, mainly embodied by Woodley’s onscreen investment in it. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 5, 2014
Intelligent and earnest, The Fault in Our Stars works well enough to keep a doubter from feeling mugged by sentiment. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle SmithJun 4, 2014
Shailene Woodley, already a subtle and rangy actress, easily carries the film as Hazel. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJun 17, 2014
Woodley and Dern breathe a ghost into the machine. Willem Dafoe has fun, albeit not too much, in a brief, vital role as a creepy writer. Most crucially, the words that survived from Green’s novel did so for a reason. Read full review
60
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJun 3, 2014
The Fault in Our Stars doesn't quite capture the discreetly twisted humor, or the muted anger, of Green's book, and its problems can be attributed to a constellation of little annoyances rather than any one serious, North Star–size flaw. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJun 5, 2014
I expected, even wanted to cry at The Fault in Our Stars, or at least choke up a little. Yet the transparent eagerness of this movie to break hearts, through means not entirely justifying that end, always pulled me back. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensJun 10, 2014
For all the film’s best intentions — and a finely tuned performance from the ever-better Woodley — for me The Fault in Our Stars never entirely found its way out of Sparks territory. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereJun 5, 2014
Fault is at heart a full-throttle, by-the-numbers tearjerker. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 5, 2014
Woodley is an ace at handling laughter through tears — "my favorite emotion," as a character in "Steel Magnolias" once said. She improves with each new film, even when the films themselves aren't much. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJun 5, 2014
The film version of the best-selling novel The Fault in Our Stars feels emotionally inert, despite its many moments that are meant to put a lump in our throats. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 5, 2014
Though it is a tragic love story, it is also a perfect and irresistible fantasy. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJun 4, 2014
Sweet, cute to the point of cutesy. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineDavid Lee DallasJun 4, 2014
It takes few chances, frequently using sass as a smokescreen, hiding what's unoriginal and cheaply sentimental about this story behind a veil of witticisms about oblivion and "cancer perks." Read full review
38
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJun 5, 2014
This movie is so tone-deaf it would only make sense in Vincent van Gogh’s missing ear. Read full review
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