The Good Dinosaur
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: November 25, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
7
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
CineVueJoe WalshNov 26, 2015
The Good Dinosaur is up there with Toy Story in terms of its technical achievement and for providing an equally heart-touching, emotional tale. Read full review
90
TheWrapInkoo KangNov 13, 2015
First-time helmer Peter Sohn and screenwriter Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out”) have created a fantastic and frequently exhilarating feature that showcases Pixar’s greatest strengths: technical brilliance, emotional texture, crossover appeal, and an impish sense of humor that takes the utmost advantage of the animated form. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRuss FischerNov 25, 2015
There’s still that dissonance — Pixar is creating its own world, though the characters, and replicating our own, in the gorgeous vistas — but even when the combination doesn’t truly sing, it remains entrancing, and even surprising. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatt MaytumNov 26, 2015
Simple but effective, The Good Dinosaur doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s still damn fine family entertainment. Slow to get going, it comes into its own when its heroes buddy up. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 24, 2015
The Good Dinosaur is antic and unexpected as well as homiletic, rife with subversive elements, wacky critters and some of the most beautiful landscapes ever seen in a computer animated film. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 24, 2015
The Good Dinosaur is charmingly different, but its oddness sneaks up on you only after the filmmakers lay out some storybook bona fides. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinNov 23, 2015
It makes you wince at the fragility of life while simultaneously welling up at the wonder of it – and that unexpected mixing of the sentimental and the existential left me feeling what can only be described as aww-struck. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonNov 13, 2015
It might be a given that Pixar’s movies are visually spectacular, but The Good Dinosaur may be the studio’s most purely cinematic, the richness of the design and the emotional power of the widescreen compositions stirring deep, almost primal feelings about childhood, the loss of innocence and the untamed ferocity of the natural world. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 24, 2015
The Good Dinosaur may not be as revolutionary as 1914’s “Gertie the Dinosaur,” but as Jurassic World already demonstrated this year, we never tire of these prehistoric critters. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianJeff BakerNov 26, 2015
What is special about The Good Dinosaur isn't the characters...but the backgrounds. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 25, 2015
The script is more functional than funny, and the animation, while adept, is not altogether memorable. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchSarah Bryan MillerNov 24, 2015
Perhaps the larger issue is that we just expect better from the company that gave us so much more originality and smarts in movies such as “WALL-E,” “Toy Story” and “Inside Out.” Enjoy it for what it is. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubNov 24, 2015
The Good Dinosaur has an original concept, disarming emotional heft and features the most impressive visuals in animated cinema to date. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Nov 24, 2015
Perhaps more than ever before, the animators do the heavy lifting: Every detail, from the gentle bob of a beast's breathing to the fluid shifts of Spot's facial expressions, has been lovingly rendered. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 24, 2015
Most of the time I was distracted by the superb photorealism of The Good Dinosaur's American Southwest backdrops, wondering how much money Disney would save by just filming the real thing. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 24, 2015
A sense of family, the one you have and the one you make, strongly pervades every inch of the world that The Good Dinosaur inhabits. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriNov 26, 2015
The resulting film is amiable, pretty, and charming in all the right ways — even if it ultimately settles for a fairly typical tale of a late bloomer finding his way. Read full review
70
SlateDan KoisNov 26, 2015
The silliness is more than made up for with moments of stillness and quiet connection between characters learning to need each other in lovely ways. And most of all, there’s the glorious landscape. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 26, 2015
The buddies’ adventures are dramatized delightfully, but a case could be made for the movie’s real subject being scenery, and, particularly, water. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 24, 2015
Visually beautiful — stunning, in places — but somewhat stale in story, director Peter Sohn’s feature debut will certainly charm young audiences, and there is some nicely bracing grown-up material: love and death, the whole deal. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlNov 24, 2015
It's smart in surprising ways, daring in a few minor ones, moving in the right ones. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangNov 13, 2015
Cross-species bonding may have its limits, but it’s hard not to find beauty in a boy-meets-beast saga that, by the end, has made it hard to tell which is which. Read full review
67
HitfixDrew McWeenyNov 26, 2015
The Good Dinosaur is fine. I found myself moved by it on a very direct level. Technically speaking, it's a gorgeous film in many ways, but I'm still not a fan of the super-cartoony style of the characters over the photo-realistic world, which is genuinely jaw-dropping. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 23, 2015
While the story attempts the moves that a Pixar film typically makes—nonverbal storytelling, death, a bittersweet ending—most of The Good Dinosaur’s punches land soft, made worse by the disconnect that exists between the overly cartoonish style of the characters and the photorealistic landscapes. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 27, 2015
Visually, The Good Dinosaur boasts some of the most amazingly photo-realistic sets I have seen in any animated film. Read full review
63
Washington PostStephanie MerryNov 24, 2015
The Good Dinosaur is hardly catastrophic. But the movie is a lot like Arlo. On its own, it seems fine; just don’t compare it to its capable siblings. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyNov 24, 2015
A very middling movie, it does have a nifty premise. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickNov 24, 2015
The Good Dinosaur is no instant classic like its sublime predecessor “Inside Out,” but is modestly pleasing in its own way. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiNov 24, 2015
A film that has some promising elements and which often seems as if it is on the verge of evolving into something wonderful but never quite manages to turn that particular corner. Read full review
60
EmpireOlly RichardsNov 24, 2015
Given the work lavished on every detail of the glorious backdrop, it’s a pity that the story happening in front of it is so familiar and safe. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 24, 2015
Notably undisciplined for a Pixar plot, it feels like a lot of heavy lifting to get to the same old lessons about kinship and finding your clan. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenNov 13, 2015
The Good Dinosaur emerges as a visually breathtaking work of computer-generated animation that is ultimately unable to compensate for a disappointingly derivative script. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 26, 2015
It’s pretty, occasionally cute, but trippy — random. Yeah, there’s one credited screenwriter, but more than all but the worst Pixar product, it shows the signs of “written by committee.” Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChuck BowenNov 25, 2015
The main character is a collection of insecurities that have been calculatedly assembled so as to teach children the usual lessons about bravery, loyalty, and self-sufficiency. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 24, 2015
The Good Dinosaur is wildly uneven, but you have to give it points for trying to be something different. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 30, 2015
The Good Dinosaur looks great, of course, but it’s not in the league we’ve come to expect. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)John SemleyNov 25, 2015
More manipulative, maudlin trash from the Disney-Pixar content farm. Read full review
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