The Founder
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: January 20, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
31
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 17, 2017
It’s some of Keaton’s finest work. It’s also the first great movie I’ve seen in 2017. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 19, 2017
Not just another biopic, The Founder is a morality tale that raises provocative questions about consumer culture, its benefits and its consequences. You won’t look at a Big Mac the same way again. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle SmithJan 18, 2017
It’s too bad that Keaton plays Kroc as a grasping, alcoholic sleaze as he builds the McDonald’s brand into an all-American empire, but I forgive the movie’s cheap shots because this is one of the most thorough and satisfying depictions of business — everything from quality control to cost-cutting and branding — ever put on film. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 18, 2017
Even in repetitive or undernourished moments Keaton, Offerman and Lynch always entertain. Their performances have fallen through the cracks of awards season. Read full review
81
The VergeTasha RobinsonJan 19, 2017
The Founder’s biggest strength is that it doesn’t lose the story or the characters in the larger metaphor about the gap between creation and exploitation. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 17, 2017
The Founder is an absorbing and unexpectedly subtle movie about the genesis of the McDonald’s burger empire. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 9, 2017
Layer by layer, this dumbfounding movie devises its magical recipe, and dares us to resist it: ketchup, mustard, two slices of pickle, and hold the irony. Delicious. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangDec 7, 2016
[Hancock] turns the unlikely subject of a fast-food chain into a quasi-religious satire, a parable of American striving and, ultimately, a study of artisanal integrity gradually caving in to commercial compromise. Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganNov 22, 2016
The extent of Kroc’s greed is The Founder’s unique playing card, and John Lee Hancock delivers it with a depressingly special sauce. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeNov 21, 2016
Keaton plays Kroc as a man both pathetic and singularly possessed, cannily resisting lovability at every turn, while delivering the internalized self-help speak of his sales pitches with chillingly glib precision. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedJan 25, 2017
A saucy, twinkling star performance by Michael Keaton make this one of the must-see entertainments of the year. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 19, 2017
The Founder represents two hours well-spent, especially for anyone with a fascination for complex characters or an interest in the shenanigans that transformed an unpretentious local restaurant into a global force. You probably won’t ever again think of McDonald’s in quite the same way. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 19, 2017
Like Apple founder Steve Jobs, Kroc – who died in 1984 – had a genius for marketing the talent of others. Is that a lesser gift? Not in these United States. Not then. And not in the age of Trump. Set more than a half century ago, The Founder proves to be a movie for a divisive here and now. Step right up. You might just learn something. God help us. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJan 19, 2017
Had The Founder focused solely on Kroc’s relationship with the McDonald brothers, it might have been one of the great intimate, sour character studies of recent times. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniJan 19, 2017
Michael Keaton has this incredible, I’m-at-the-edge-of-the-abyss look that should be taught as "the hangdog" in drama school. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 19, 2017
Keaton is fun to watch — fun and a little bit eerie. He plays Ray as all drive and no soul. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 19, 2017
The Founder is a solid, smart, worthwhile film and the only remaining mystery is why the Weinstein Company is burying it with a quiet January release rather than pushing its much-loved star into the awards race with the usual fanfare. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 19, 2017
Certain things get fudged in The Founder, among them Kroc's middle marriage, and director Hancock can't completely resolve the warring strains in what he sees as Kroc's personality. But that's what gives the movie its tension, and it works. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezJan 18, 2017
The Founder certainly does not reinvent the meal, but as a bite sized, consumable snack (that feels like 90 minutes though is actually much longer), its lively and entertaining spirit does often hit the spot. And surprisingly, though traditionally told, the narrative does unwrap a deceptive bite along the way. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittJan 16, 2017
There is a certain jittery edginess to Keaton’s Kroc but the actor imbues his character with such folksy likability that it’s a subtle turn from working-class go-getter to greedy bad guy. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 11, 2017
The legends of America’s great robber barons are equal parts inspiring and appalling. And damned if The Founder doesn’t get that balance just right. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerDec 9, 2016
Hancock is not the ideal fit for the queasy mix of fascination, sympathy, and discomfort that Siegel brought to movies like The Wrestler and Big Fan. The Founder is drier than either of those movies, which means it’s less funny but also has even less potential for sentiment. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekJan 20, 2017
The Founder is so entertaining, it scans like a tongue-in-cheek satire. But processing it is a little like taking a watch apart — suddenly, you get a sense of how complicated the world’s inner workings are, even today. It’s all there in Keaton’s watchful, calculating eyes. The world has changed a lot in 60 years. But the art of the deal hasn’t. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 19, 2017
The Founder, John Lee Hancock’s film about Ray Kroc, is kind of a mess, which makes it perfect for the current political climate. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJan 19, 2017
Michael Keaton is sensational as Kroc. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJan 17, 2017
The Founder slowly reveals itself as a don't-let-the-devil-into-your-house parable, one that uses all the techniques of inspirational moviemaking to disguise that devil's intentions, even from the devil himself. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoJan 17, 2017
Keaton’s hazy wading through Kroc’s McDonald’s takeover is a dynamic performance that drives moral emptiness, but remains so poisonously watchable. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 20, 2017
The Founder remains fascinating largely because Keaton is so good at guile and bile. Not once does he wink at the audience or overplay the obvious. His Kroc is magnetically repellent – more so, I venture to guess, than the filmmakers intended him to be. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnDec 7, 2016
If The Founder comes up short of providing a satisfactory dramatization of its main storyline, at least it peels back the veil with sufficient intrigue. Yet it still leaves the sour impression that Kroc got the last laugh. Even in this less-than-flattering portrait, he remains its brightest star. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJan 21, 2017
The details of the story are often fascinating (you’ll learn a lot about burger production), and the cast find plenty of moments to shine. Read full review
63
Washington PostStephanie MerryJan 19, 2017
In the end, The Founder is little more than a deflating reminder, as if we needed one, that the winner takes all, and integrity isn’t always the key to success. Read full review
60
Total FilmKevin HarleyFeb 17, 2017
A satire of capitalist can-do thinking lurks in The Wrestler/Turbo writer Robert D. Siegel’s script, yet Hancock (Saving Mr. Banks) lacks the stomach to do full justice to its vision of the American dream plummeting into a nightmare. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinFeb 16, 2017
It’s eye-opening, well acted and darkly entertaining. Read full review
60
CineVueJamie NeishFeb 16, 2017
The Founder is a solid biopic but not one that will go down in history - unlike the multi-million dollar-making fast food chain at its core. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisJan 19, 2017
Ray remains an unanswered, not especially compelling, question, but Mr. Keaton comes close to making you believe there’s soul to go with the fries and freneticism. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 19, 2017
Mr. Keaton’s performance is fascinating from beginning to end, and the movie around him is entertaining in fits and starts. Ultimately, though, it’s a tough sell, a biopic with an uncertain tone that doesn’t know what to make of its subject. Read full review
60
Time OutTom HuddlestonDec 21, 2016
Like the product that inspired it, The Founder is tasty enough while it lasts but never quite fills you up. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinNov 21, 2016
Hancock's apparently irrepressible penchant for folksy Midwestern types and perky montages dilutes any cynicism or misanthropy that might have given this material the edginess it deserves. Read full review
59
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeNov 29, 2016
The Founder never steps up to become the biting satire of American capitalism it so begs to be. The film is not here to praise Ray Kroc, but neither is it here to bury him. Read full review
58
ConsequenceMichael RoffmanJan 18, 2017
There’s just no subtlety to any of the proceedings and while there’s an argument to made in how the film’s fairly transparent about these intentions, none of it rises above being anything more than an average historical recap. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 25, 2017
An actor most at home playing devilish, Keaton’s got the last-reel Machiavellian shrug down cold. But neither he nor the filmmakers do much to illuminate the neural pistons fired from brain to bodily shrug. Read full review
50
MTV NewsAmy NicholsonJan 21, 2017
We’re stuck with Hancock’s vanilla saga about a soulless businessman who failed until he won big, a story that might have worked in the cynical ’90s but today has a moral obligation to say something with its two-hour running time. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 19, 2017
As limp and cold as The Founder is as a movie, it contains one of the finest Keaton performances of his entire career, maybe the one he’s been working his whole life toward. Read full review
50
The Film StageDaniel SchindelJan 18, 2017
It certainly is dramatic material, but The Founder presents it as a generic “rise to the top” story without even the decency to suggest Kroc lost his soul along the way. Read full review
50
ScreenCrushMatt SingerDec 7, 2016
This movie offers very few insights, and has no apparent point beyond mythologizing the early days of a company that doesn’t exactly need assistance in the self-mythologizing department. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Jan 17, 2017
The details of how the McDonalds literally invented the fast-food concept are fascinating. The period details feel right. All in all, the film's a slick, good-looking package. But it still feels empty. Where's the message? Where's the meaning? Where's the beef? Read full review
38
Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianDec 7, 2016
Michael Keaton's powerful performance in The Founder is marooned in a wishy-washy story. Read full review
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