The Nativity Story
New Line Cinema | Release Date: December 1, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
15
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Unfolds in a scrupulously accurate historical adventure story that depicts the world of Jesus' birth with an exciting you-are-there verisimilitude. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
The Nativity Story surprised me. I didn't expect such an obvious art film approach. Yet the Bible, in the King James version, is great English literature. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Isaac's emotional performance as the man who learns to share the woman he loves with the God he worships is profoundly moving and gives the movie its heart. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
By grounding everything that went before in an earthy realism, Hardwicke earns the elevation of the nativity sequence, one of the more beautiful scenes in this year's cinema. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
At its best, The Nativity Story shares with "Hail Mary" an interest in finding a kernel of realism in the old story of a pregnant teenager in hard times. Buried in the pageantry, in other words, is an interesting movie. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Compared to the crucifixion, the nativity doesn't offer as much inherent drama for secular viewers, but screenwriter Mike Rich (The Rookie) generates a fair amount of suspense by framing the action with Herod's slaughter of the innocents, and the journey of the Three Wise Men supplies a warm comedic subplot. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's a handsome production, nicely shot by Elliot Davis on Italian and Moroccan locations, with a performance by Castle-Hughes ("Whale Rider") as the Virgin that's so pleasing and minimalist it could have been lifted from a fresco by Giotto. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
In a real sense, Nativity Story is the female other to Gibson's "Passion": Dedicated to life rather than death, it's suffused with a sense of the womanly divine. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Don't expect a Caravaggio, but if your taste turns to Hallmark, this is a good bet -- a straight-up Nativity story as safe as death and taxes. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Slow, solemn going, despite its best efforts at thundering soldiers and comic-relief kings. Read full review
60
Village VoiceScott Foundas
There are a few quietly affecting scenes here, in which we see Mary and Joseph as the terribly frightened newlyweds they probably were, unsure of what to make of their extraordinary circumstances. But too often, the actors register as little more than set dressing and, despite Hardwicke's resolve to give us the realNativity as we've never seen it before, much of the movie smacks of convention. Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
I have to hand it to Hardwicke: I was a lot less bored by The Nativity Story than I feared I'd be. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
It's a rather lifeless re-telling of the Nativity, with greeting-card imagery and stiff performances. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
A filmed Sunday-school lesson that favors a dry, by-the-Book approach over even a suggestion of dramatic interpretation. It's more Christmas pageant than movie. Read full review
58
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Other than portraying Mary as an overwhelmed teenager, mystified that God has chosen her to be the mother of his child, it doesn't offer anything that hasn't been playing out in grade-school pageants for decades. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Memories of dreary Sunday school classes come flooding back courtesy of The Nativity Story. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
As a piece of religious instruction or an animated version of a crèche, it accomplishes its aims. As a movie, however, it's slow, plodding, and not terribly interesting. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
This is not a chance to "experience the most timeless of stories as you've never seen it before" but just the opposite: an opportunity, for those who want it, to encounter this story exactly the way it's almost always been told. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
This drab exercise in glum piety slumps where it should soar, sapping the story of its mystery and transcendence with an overriding sense of literality. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
As dull and inert as the ink used to print the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that informed Mike Rich's script. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The Nativity Story is a film of tame picture-book sincerity, but that's not the same thing as devotion. The movie is too tepid to feel, or see, the light. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Other than its overwrought Herod-Antipas scenes, The Nativity Story sticks so closely to the text that it's a total snooze. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleToddy Burton
The story is good, but the execution favors the safe over the challenging. Personally, I'd rather just read the Bible. Read full review
40
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
For an origin story about one of the most compelling and important characters in history, The Nativity Story is pretty damn boring. Read full review
40
EmpireIan Freer
Surprisingly sedate telling of the rather well-known tale from Catherine Hardwicke. Read full review
30
SlateDana Stevens
Fatuous, sappy, and dull. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
A star rises in the east. A savior is born. Two thousand years later, a surprisingly dull film is made. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
A deadly dull, by-the-numbers rendition of the Nativity story. Read full review
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