The Life of Chuck
Neon | Release Date: June 6, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
14
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
USA TodayBrian TruittJun 5, 2025
If you want to go for the really scary stuff, there are plenty of other King movies for that. “Chuck” instead is something truly special, a moving fantasy of a life well lived and no dance step left untaken. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJun 5, 2025
This is a musical movie, not just because it features musical numbers. It weaves its spell not merely by what it does, but how it moves, and what it chooses to say or not say, and when it decides to proceed to the next scene. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonJun 4, 2025
It’s one of this year’s best movies. I don’t know how it will fare at the box office, but I can see it becoming a beloved favorite in the same way “The Shawshank Redemption” ultimately did. Like that classic, this one really makes you think about life and the things we take for granted. Read full review
91
Original-CinKaren GordonJun 11, 2025
It is engaging, warm, touching, and sincere without being cloying or manipulative. Read full review
90
SlashfilmBill BriaJun 6, 2025
Instead, The Life of Chuck is one of the most insightful and moving philosophical films ever made, a movie that's as much Kierkegaard as it is King. Read full review
90
TheWrapChase HutchinsonSep 12, 2024
It’s not only his best film yet, but it’s the work he’s been building up to over his entire career. Read full review
90
ColliderJason GorberSep 12, 2024
Dancing between the ruminative and the revelatory, it never succumbs to being maudlin or cloying. The Life of Chuck is a modern fable told with the deftness of a fairy tale, with the sheer exuberance of a musical while exuding the same sense of wonder one gets staring up at the heavens. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJun 5, 2025
The Life of Chuck is not so much about raging at the dying of the light but about how we embrace the inevitability of death and the wonder of what comes before. It’s blockbuster metaphysics, a twinkle in the eye of the infinite. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 16, 2025
Watching The Life of Chuck, I was inspired to remember how wonderful it can be to find a movie that offers the thrill of discovery and the comfort of real emotions. That’s such a rare combination these days and when a film unlocks the secret, it deserves to be seen and lauded for the accomplishment. Read full review
88
Washington PostThomas FloydJun 12, 2025
Adapted by Flanagan from King’s 2020 novella, this meditation on the bittersweet beauty of the human condition is sweeping in sentiment and surgical in intent. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinAug 20, 2025
Part end-of-the-world drama, part musical, part coming-of-age ghost story, The Life Of Chuck won’t please everyone. But, if you open yourself to its brazen sincerity, you might just shed a life-affirming tear or two. Read full review
80
Screen DailyNikki BaughanJun 12, 2025
For the most part The Life Of Chuck remains a moving drama that comes close to capturing the infinite value of an individual life. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 12, 2025
No, it’s not “The Shining.” It’s not trying to be. But it is a salve when we need one most, and that’s a lot. Read full review
80
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiJun 7, 2025
The film is poignant and meaningful, with an appreciation for life that reminds us why we live it and how to enjoy it as well. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJun 6, 2025
The film’s driving ideas, which transform over the course of the picture, are replete with ironic potential, but Flanagan ably navigates the tonal minefield, never presenting the whole thing as a wink-wink joke on his characters. They feel real, both in their conception and in how they deviate from our preconceptions, which is quite an accomplishment given that most of them aren’t even onscreen for that long within the movie’s frescolike structure. Read full review
80
Film ThreatRick HongJun 3, 2025
The Life of Chuck takes a moment for its storytelling technique to be fully understood. But the plot offers intrigue, drama, and mystery in one compelling package. Read full review
80
LooperAudrey FoxSep 18, 2024
It features an excellent ensemble cast who bring tremendous heart to each of their cinematic segments, and represents Stephen King at his most sentimental and uncynical. Read full review
79
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJun 11, 2025
More than likely, Flanagan’s film will leave you a sobbing mess. But there is a sense of betrayal, too – it’s almost too easy to wring those tears. Take this dance, sure, but bring the Kleenex, too. Read full review
78
The AtlanticShirley LiJun 16, 2025
The appeal of Flanagan’s take on The Life of Chuck rests on his understanding of this resonant quality of King’s writing; on-screen, as on the page, the story hums because it highlights the ordinary foundation upon which the supernatural can be built. Within the strange events is a core that is bittersweet and familiar. Read full review
77
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 7, 2024
A film that’s as sweet as it is scary, and whose frights are the sort that come from all-too-relatable fears about being alone, being apart, and being unable to hold onto the people and memories that matter most. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesKatie WalshJun 11, 2025
Flanagan’s trick is simply how he imparts this eternal lesson to us: We know life will end, so how you spend the time is all that matters. It’s simple, and it may be delivered in a way that’s a bit too clever by half, but it’s still a gut punch, and a message worth absorbing now, and always. Read full review
75
The PlaylistAnkit JhunjhunwalaSep 12, 2024
There is definitely some extraneous storytelling muddle in The Life Of Chuck, but once you get past the opening act, there are glories to be had – in the form of a terrific childhood coming-of-age tale anchored by a star-making turn by Pajak and exceptional dancing by Pajak and Hiddleston. Read full review
67
Paste MagazineAnna McKibbinJun 6, 2025
If nothing else, The Life of Chuck proves that Flanagan’s control of tone and pacing extends to more than just ghost stories, infecting the rhythms of everyday drama with a haunting, heartfelt doom. Read full review
67
IndieWireKatie RifeSep 12, 2024
As a filmmaker, Flanagan deals in raw, go-for-broke emotion; it’s just that this time around, he’s using that passion to affirm the audience, not disturb them. Read full review
63
The Associated PressLindsey BahrJun 4, 2025
While I certainly enjoyed elements of this odyssey in reverse, I was ultimately left feeling very little — especially about Chuck and the questionable end-of-film explanation that ties it all together. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesAmy NicholsonJun 5, 2025
If you started the movie at the end, you wouldn’t be champing to find out what happens next. But the apocalyptic opening act is pretty great. Read full review
60
VarietySiddhant AdlakhaSep 12, 2024
Any romantic notions the film might have are swiftly undone when it starts to explain the disappointing method behind its sleight of hand — until this explanation becomes the magic trick itself. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenSep 12, 2024
Lacking in tonal connective tissue, The Life of Chuck may still leave in its wake the desired upbeat, life-hugging effect, but it ultimately proves to be an ephemeral one — as transitory as the apparitions who usually haunt Flanagan’s more potent ghost stories. Read full review
50
Little White LiesBillie WalkerAug 22, 2025
Despite all its layers The Life of Chuck is nothing more than a set of Russian nesting dolls made entirely of borrowed brilliance. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJun 17, 2025
The Life of Chuck confronts the mysteries of life and the universe and leaves no wonder at all. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 9, 2025
After the persuasively strange first chapter’s over, “The Life of Chuck” is a duller kind of strange. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekJun 6, 2025
From its cute-fake soundstage-town setting to the authoritative yet chummy voice-over narration (courtesy of Nick Offerman), The Life of Chuck works doggedly to give you the warm fuzzies—and a little bit of that fuzz goes a long way. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearJun 5, 2025
Hiddleston’s soft shoe gives you a glimpse of how the ordinary can become extraordinary. The movie surrounding it, however, seems determined to make the extraordinary seem as bumper-sticker simple and banal as humanly possible. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 5, 2025
Ejiofor fills in Marty with dabs of personality and a sense of decency that suggests that while humanity is lost, not every individual is. It’s too bad the movie doesn’t stick with Marty, who warms it up appreciably. Read full review
50
IGNA.A. Dowd Sep 12, 2024
You can admire the ambition of The Life of Chuck while still wondering if such a lightly philosophical story needed to make the leap to the screen – or if turning all of its prose into Nick Offerman voice-over was the best move. It’s less an adaptation, ultimately, than a glorified book on tape from a talented King superfan. Read full review
42
The Film StageC.J. PrinceSep 12, 2024
All technical prowess, from Flanagan to his strong ensemble cast, can only go so far when it’s in service of such shallow, offensive escapism. This is a childish take on a universal experience and everyone, from the people involved in the production to the viewers, deserve better. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeAug 20, 2025
That first (third) act functions effectively as a bewitching enigmatic short that gets away with its downbeat denouement. The audience can fill the gaps in whatever enigmatic way they see fit. Unfortunately the movie continues backwards into increasingly mawkish territory. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithJun 5, 2025
The Life of Chuck is an overstuffed suitcase of a movie, one that comes off as a bit graceless and misshapen with all of the cramming and jamming. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJun 5, 2025
Try as writer-director Mike Flanagan might, there’s something coldly unmoving about it all, a disjointed and dry-eyed tearjerker that never rises above Instagram caption philosophy. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 20, 2025
The Life of Chuck has a resignation and a timeliness to it that render any “escape” it might offer moot. Every viewer brings his or her own baggage into the cinema, but whatever might have touched many seems buried under disorganized treacle. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineMarshall ShafferJun 1, 2025
Mike Flanagan’s film doesn’t escape the mires of unpersuasive pop psychology. Read full review
38
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 18, 2024
In The Life of Chuck, the pieces come together much too obviously. And the takeaways — that a person is the product of experience, and don’t judge a book by its cover — are well-tread to the point of total flatness. Read full review
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