The Royal Hotel
Neon | Release Date: October 6, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 6, 2023
A psychological thriller, it’s all the more tense for Green’s smart understatement of the genre elements. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJessica KiangOct 6, 2023
It’s all so horribly familiar — even for those who have never traveled, never tended bar, and never found themselves the only female in a roomful of drunken, lonely men. The central terror of Green’s ferociously tense, intelligent movie is the terror of recognition. Read full review
90
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 27, 2023
What makes The Royal Hotel brilliant, besides its heart-pounding performances, is how it illuminates the many ways in which men acting in socially acceptable, ordinary ways — playful catcalling, persistent passes, flexing power to be impressive — forms its own kind of horror house of mirrors in which it’s impossible to tell what’s truly sinister and what’s just someone acting like a guy they saw once in a Western. Read full review
90
VarietyAmy NicholsonSep 20, 2023
Green is a storyteller with such control that we don’t leave the theater feeling patronized or hectored. She’s thought everything out, and planned it so that every scene in The Royal Hotel is as gripping as it is pointed. Read full review
90
TheWrapTomris LafflySep 8, 2023
The most brilliant aspect of the script, penned jointly by Green and Oscar Redding, is its flair with sketching out the ups and downs of Hanna and Liv’s friendship. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 27, 2023
Green has made two very different, extraordinarily efficient and compact movies in a row. That, too, may look easy but is anything but — unless you’re a filmmaker and writer of her particular gifts. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 4, 2023
Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick turn in layered, nuanced performances, while the male actors playing varying degrees of scumbag are suitably and effectively nauseating and intimidating. The Royal Hotel is a little like the Hotel California in that you can check out any time you’d like, but on some level, you can never really leave. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 15, 2023
The director (whose “The Assistant” was solid, but this is far better) has built a gripping thriller around the sort of off-hand remarks, boozy outbursts and inappropriate behavior that most bartenders and reasonable patrons encounter all the time. Everywhere. Read full review
85
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpOct 5, 2023
[Green's] new film The Royal Hotel could be summed up as Smile More: The Movie, which grounds a clash between two globe-separated cultures in old-time misogynist tropes that know no geographic borders. Like The Assistant, the movie revolves around women in the presence of atmospheric male domination. Gendered maltreatment is in the very air they breathe. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiz BraunOct 3, 2023
This is toxic masculinity seen from a feminist viewpoint; rest assured the women are not victims. Read full review
82
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 5, 2023
The fact that The Royal Hotel keeps its audience as captive as its leads until that final moment is an impressive and ultimately incendiary feat. Read full review
80
EmpireSophie ButcherNov 3, 2023
A slight but mightily effective adrenaline rush of a movie, with powerful performances all round and precise direction from Kitty Green. Watch it on the big screen and allow it to properly get your heart pounding and palms sweating. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyNov 3, 2023
Other directors might have escalated this into the zone of outright horror, with gory payback awaiting. Not Green, who has the level intent of keeping it chillingly real. Read full review
80
Time OutStephen A. RussellOct 31, 2023
It reunites director Kitty Green with her ’The Assistant’ star Julia Garner and should marry provocative genre thrills with a cerebral feminist subtext. Read full review
80
IGNLeila LatifOct 12, 2023
It’s a distinctly less subtle look at misogyny than her #MeToo masterpiece The Assistant, but Green further distinguishes herself as one of the most exciting and provocative feminist filmmakers around. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisOct 5, 2023
Inspired by Pete Gleeson’s 2016 documentary about two Finnish backpackers, “Hotel Coolgardie,” The Royal Hotel is after something more subtle than pure horror. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 10, 2023
Garner and co-star Jessica Henwick navigate the picture’s mixture of drama, suspense and horror superbly, leaving the audience fearful that this slow-burn powder keg will eventually go off — although we’re not sure who the casualties will be. Read full review
80
Vanity FairEsther ZuckermanSep 8, 2023
Green deals in the unexplicit, and those questions are the engine of the film. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 5, 2023
Filmmaker and muse/alter ego have put recognizable, human characters in an extreme situation and dared us to guess how they’ll exit it. And no matter how they might leave, we absolutely believe every possibility of what might come, because that just comes with being a woman in a world that’s more hostile to them than you think. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyOct 4, 2023
The Royal Hotel shares a vibe with Alex Garland’s sophisticated horror film “Men” — an arty indictment of toxic masculinity that often felt like a lecture. But Green’s film doesn’t feel like that. The final scene will make you cheer, even if the ultimate message is murky. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineGregory NussenSep 26, 2023
In this film of clammy anxiety, the potential of male violence is made to feel as scary as the actual article. Read full review
75
SlashfilmBarry LevittSep 19, 2023
As the horrors of The Royal Hotel unfold, the film shifts from a terse thriller into a full-on horror, assisted by appropriately and effectively eerie cinematography from Michael Latham. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMarya E. GatesSep 10, 2023
Green continues to establish herself as an insightful chronicler of the minor yet devastating terrors of violent masculinity that many women endure everywhere they go. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreOct 19, 2023
Green has a talent for depicting the way women constantly recalibrate their behavior when moving through male spaces, trying to figure out how to attract enough attention but not too much, to come across as pleasant without inviting unwanted intimacies. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithOct 6, 2023
While the subject has been the province of clichés and exaggeration, the movie’s points are well-crafted, despite a wild Hollywood ending at odds with this indie offering’s otherwise gritty appeal. As it decries a social problem it adds layers and surprises. It can’t be dismissed as an overwrought message movie. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerOct 4, 2023
Unfortunately, The Royal Hotel ultimately lacks the subtle ambiguity about complicity and power that made The Assistant so fascinating. Instead, it's a feel-good ending that borders on trite, and even oddly carries a whiff of cultural imperialism. Read full review
67
The Film StageC.J. PrinceSep 8, 2023
The Royal Hotel doesn’t provide much background or context to its characters, which gives the film an unpredictability that feeds into its slow-boiling tension. Read full review
67
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodSep 7, 2023
Something is missing from making it a knockout. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyNov 3, 2023
The sustained twitchy energy of the script amplifies the jangling nerves of Hanna’s fight-or-flight dilemma. But Liv’s weak-mindedness can feel implausible and the grandstanding denouement feels jarring and unearned. Read full review
60
Little White LiesMark AschNov 2, 2023
After the self-contained and simmering Assistant this feels like Green’s attempt to make similar material more accessible. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 2, 2023
There’s a lot to admire in the performances from Garner, Henwick, Yovich and Weaving. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 15, 2023
The hoary sub-genre that is “attractive American tourists find something nefarious on their travels” is given a vigorous polish in thoughtful thriller The Royal Hotel, a film light on exploitation and heavy on interrogation. Read full review
58
ColliderIsabella SoaresSep 19, 2023
Given that the two leads in this project don't seem to have a clear driving force to their actions, this feminist thriller does more to show the challenges that women face than to create fully developed characters. Although the film does end with a bang, these missteps leading up to the resolution make the final scene bittersweet. Read full review
50
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenNov 9, 2023
The two main characters in The Royal Hotel—young women abroad who take bartending jobs at a run-down resort in the Australian outback after they’ve run out of traveling funds—make so many ill-advised choices that you begin to wonder if director Kitty Green, who wrote the film with Oscar Redding, is conducting some sort of feminist litmus test. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedOct 10, 2023
Written and directed with muscle and grit by Kitty Green, The Royal Hotel is loaded with grim ambiance, and there is even some suspense, mainly while the viewer waits to see if anything will ever happen. Read full review
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