The X Files: I Want to Believe
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: July 25, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
22
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie works like thrillers used to work, before they were required to contain villains the size of buildings. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Billy Connolly, as a scurvy priest who may or may not be a visionary, steals the acting honors. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Knowing nothing about "X-Files" is no impediment to appreciating this for the well-acted, adult piece of work that it is. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Duchovny gives a nicely shaped performance here -- he still has the ability to suggest the boyish eagerness beneath Fox's blasé demeanor. But the movie really belongs to Anderson. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The Carter and Spotnitz's credit, such weighty concerns aren't the stuff of most mainstream genre movies. But they're also not sufficiently gripping to transform a middling thriller into something truly provocative or haunting. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
I Want to Believe provides a welcome reminder of what made Carter's franchise a pop-culture gem. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
The truth is, the mystery pales next to the best "X-Files" plots. But fans will appreciate sly references to past episodes, an unexpected appearance from an old friend and the still-poignant bond our heroes share. Read full review
60
Film ThreatRory L. Aronsky
Please Chris Carter, bring us X-Files fans back to where we belong. If there is to be another movie, and there damn well better be, return us to our beloved mythology. Read full review
60
EmpireKim Newman
An okay paranormal mystery, with solid work from the regulars – but please Mr Carter, next time, could we have liver-eating mutants or post-modern comedy like the really good episodes of The X Files? Read full review
60
TimeRichard Corliss
For the uninitiated, The X Files: I Want to Believe may seem as musty and forbidding as one of those dank secrets that Mulder and Scully were forever digging up from some backyard, or fetid swamp, or their own aching hearts. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Older and sadder, Mulder and Scully are no longer sure they've got the energy to even ask if the truth is still out there. And it feels as if Carter is skeptical, too. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerTravis Nichols
Does nothing so much as stir up a pining for the show in its prime -- a darkly imaginative and wonderfully weird thing -- though it is always nice to see old friends, however mellowed by age they turn out to be. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
An exercise in mediocrity. It's curious how little of the TV series' charm and appeal can be found in this uneven, plodding excuse for a reunion. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The story is shockingly ordinary. The movie plays like an extended mediocre episode of the X-Files TV show or, for that matter, even a contemporary crime series such as CSI. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Atmospheric and moves briskly, but it's basically TV writ large. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The whole enterprise suffers from tired blood. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Worst of all, not once does Mulder answer his cell phone to hear those immortal lines: "It's Scully. There's been another death." Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
In not knowing who it needs to please, I Want to Believe pleases no one. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The problem is that only a fan would be inclined to tolerate this dunderheaded mystery. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian Lowry
The warming glow of nostalgia only goes so far, with one's level of forgiveness likely dictated by where they reside along the "X-Files" fan continuum. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The story is both a muddle and a drag. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJustin Lowe
Overall, the film plays like an improbably skewed but comparatively routine criminal procedural that would have served the original show well as an extended season opener or sweeps-week contender. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Anderson, who's turned Brit in a number of TV series and films, including "Bleak House" and "The Last King of Scotland," is compelling in her white lab coat and surgical scrubs, and she brings some real tenderness to her tete-a-tetes with Mulder. Read full review
50
Washington PostHank Stuever
A taut, well-acted, not very scary, not very hard to figure out serial-killer mystery. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
The problem with the movie's semisupernatural crime plot, though, isn't that the resolution is completely outlandish; it's that the outlandishness is insufficiently grounded in pseudoscience. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It feels like a wan version of the show -- one that has lost its otherworldly edge. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Carter and his underachieving cohorts have seldom given cultists less to believe. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Baggy, draggy, oddly timed and strangely off the mark, The X-Files: I Want to Believe is the generally bad-news follow-up to the show’s first feature-film incarnation, "The X-Files." Read full review
38
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The truth is, indeed, still out there. And when Carter finds it, may he heed its wisdom: Let go. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
We waited 10 years for a sequel to the movie version of "The X-Files" – and the best Chris Carter could do is The X-Files: I Want to Believe? Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
The truth is still out there, like an unsold lawn chair at a garage sale, in this just plain lousy second big-screen outing for erstwhile FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesJan Stuart
Even at its stride, "The X-Files" was a load of malarkey. But it was thoughtful malarkey and compulsively watchable. One could say the same about the first two-thirds of The X-Files: I Want to Believe before it spins out of control and into a delirious plane of awfulness. Read full review
11
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
They've become deadly dull, these two once-keen buckers of bureaucratic BS, and watching them interact on screen is akin to having your pleasure centers removed by knobby little aliens whose only knowledge of mankind comes from Jack Webb's stoically unvarying television incarnations. Read full review
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