tick, tick...Boom!
Netflix | Release Date: November 12, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 44 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinThom ErnstNov 12, 2021
Tick, Tick…Boom! packs a great deal of joy into a story that pushes a more modern and darker take on the make-it-or-break-it mantra of classic ‘40s musicals. The songs are engaging and staged with a feel-good choreography that consists less of formalized dance (for the most part) than it does gleeful bursts of movement. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyJessica DerschowitzNov 19, 2021
Tick, Tick… Boom! is a totem for the thrills and trials of making art, with all the sacrifices and empathy it requires. Read full review
90
CNNBrian LowryNov 19, 2021
Deftly expanding the source material into a movie, the film is anchored by a sensational performance by Andrew Garfield as Larson. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleSarah JaneNov 12, 2021
I’m not sure tick, tick…Boom! is for everyone. People who like Rent/Larson and musical fans in general will love it. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comNell MinowNov 22, 2021
Miranda, who starred as Larson in a theatrical performance of this play, directs the film with a deep understanding of the passion, struggle, and ebullience of an artist committed to an art form that requires a lot of money and a lot of other people to be brought to life. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiNov 15, 2021
While Rentheads and Broadway fans will certainly connect to it on a deeper level than those who only know Idina Menzel as Elphaba, not Maureen, Tick, Tick is a terrific, moving, propulsive film on its own terms. It’s about New York, art, life and love. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 11, 2021
"BOOM!” is an entertaining, heart-filling work that showcases two musical geniuses, putting a new spotlight on Larson’s musical legacy and giving Miranda another endeavor to gift us with his unparalleled artistry. Read full review
85
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 23, 2021
With Tick, Tick … Boom, Miranda celebrates the power and the pressure of the world he loves most, and he’s picked a subject who encapsulates those warring dynamics perfectly. Read full review
85
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzNov 16, 2021
In terms of musical-theatre bona fides and genuine, soaring emotion, Tick, Tick … Boom! drowns out its contemporaries all the way up to the rafters. Read full review
85
PolygonNoel MurrayNov 11, 2021
Not everything Miranda and Levenson try with this film works, but even at its messiest, the movie is always meaningful. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubCaroline SiedeNov 14, 2021
In joyfully embracing just about every tool in the movie-musical toolbox, Miranda crafts a fitting tribute to the act of artistic creation. And he might just make some musical converts in the process. Read full review
82
Paste MagazineAurora AmidonNov 24, 2021
A film jam-packed with melancholy, powerhouse performances, and told with a somber, realistic storytelling structure that is at first jarring to the senses, but ultimately pays off. But I would be remiss to let you go without noting that this movie is also ridiculously fun. Read full review
80
NMEHannah MylreaMar 22, 2022
Garfield’s performance is a compassionate one, careful not to hide Larson’s vainer side but also presenting him sympathetically. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriNov 22, 2021
It’s a movie that sings, poignantly, from many times at once. Read full review
80
ABC NewsPeter TraversNov 19, 2021
The creator of ‘Hamilton,’ Lin Manuel Miranda, offers a stirring tribute to the creator of ‘Rent,’ Jonathan Larson, whose too short life—as acted and sung by the sensational Andrew Garfield—becomes a love letter to his soaring spirit. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 16, 2021
Thanks to Larson’s songs, Miranda’s directing and generous, inspired acting — particularly from Garfield, who manages to be lovable and obnoxious, depending on what’s needed — tick … tick … Boom! is a moving tribute to a misunderstood process and the people who engage in it. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 13, 2021
Miranda and screenwriter Steven Levenson (“Dear Evan Hansen”) have made an inspired jumble, a surprisingly graceful Franken-Steinway of a movie. Read full review
80
Time OutHelen O'HaraNov 12, 2021
It’s a lot of passion and restless, sometimes misdirected energy to channel through this film, but Miranda marshalls it effectively, communicating Larson’s talent and drive without obscuring the fact that he could, sometimes, be a bit wearisome about it. Read full review
80
SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiNov 12, 2021
Painfully earnest and positively exuberant, Tick, Tick... BOOM! isn't counting down to some kind of tragic fate. It's an explosion of life, energy, the ecstasy of being alive and making something. It's an ode to the creatives who fear they'll never reach the greatness they've been grasping at. It's a promise that they might. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinNov 11, 2021
If Miranda’s tendency towards showmanship can leave Tick, Tick…Boom! feeling a little insistent in places, it also means the film shares its hero’s jet-propelled determination to do his own thing – whether the world happens to be braced for it or not. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyNov 11, 2021
Miranda’s film finds a graceful balance between fact and fiction, framing art as a heightened form of self obsession and the most magical and important thing in the world. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeNov 11, 2021
What’s refreshing about the debuting director’s approach is that it feels relatively egoless. His style is playful and energetic, often intercutting between multiple threads within a given song or scene, but it doesn’t feel as if Miranda is calling attention to himself so much as trying to open up the show. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 11, 2021
Lin-Manuel Miranda gives us an unashamed sugar rush of showbiz rapture and showbiz solemnity in this heartfelt tribute to Broadway talent Jonathan Larson, played here by Andrew Garfield. Read full review
80
TheWrapTodd GilchristNov 11, 2021
On a level of sheer cinematic flourish, Miranda’s adaptation is a triumph; he really harnesses Larson’s songs for the screen and gives them tremendous life, whether or not you’d seen them before on stage. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 18, 2021
The surprisingly intimate result is enjoyable in the moment but the mental footprint fades rather quickly. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeDon AucoinNov 18, 2021
When coupled with the itchy urgency of Garfield’s outstanding performance as Jon, the brio with which Miranda infuses tick, tick … BOOM! helps to camouflage the fundamentally clichéd nature of the dilemma faced by the protagonist. Read full review
75
The Film StageJared MobarakNov 16, 2021
Garfield is funny and charismatic to draw us in and devastating when presenting the palpable shame that keeps us caring. Broadway cameos aside (some even get to sing during the biggest set-piece of the whole on “Sunday”), however, Garfield can’t carry the full weight of the story alone. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleLily JaniakNov 15, 2021
Perhaps the greatest gift of Tick, Tick … Boom! is that it rejects the false narrative of the artist’s one big shot, the make-it-or-break-it moment. Jonathan might keep hearing a timer ticking down in his head, but he has to learn that the singular event of his arrival as an artist is a myth. Read full review
70
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaNov 22, 2021
Lin-Manuel Miranda tries to turn Jonathan Larson’s one-man show into a traditional musical, but ends up getting stuck halfway in between. However, Andrew Garfield delivers a tremendous, running-on-fumes performance as the real-life Broadway mainstay, whose impending 30th birthday pushes him to his creative and emotional brink. Read full review
67
IndieWireSteve GreeneNov 11, 2021
A film so calibrated when humming forward starts to lose its tonal footing when Jon’s creative spark dims to a too-faint flicker. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineDan RubinsDec 18, 2021
tick, tick… BOOM! never quite resolves that tension between well-attended wake and intimate memoir. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 22, 2021
Miranda gives us a revised but affectionate, intimate and respectful adaptation of a stage show about one man’s deadline-obsessed creative process and how impossibly difficult it is to write and mount a musical and launch your career in the priciest, cruelest crucible of them all, The Big Apple. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJake CoyleNov 15, 2021
Tick, Tick... BOOM! is a tender ode to Larson, just as it is a tribute to all Broadway pursuit. Read full review
60
Little White LiesElena LazicNov 22, 2021
While this is ultimately a film about taking the time to appreciate what you have and enjoying every step of your way, the overall impression remains one of haste and only occasionally contagious overexcitement. Read full review
60
The New York TimesAmy NicholsonNov 18, 2021
Miranda’s devotion to his idol keeps him from expanding the musical’s myopic fretting into a universal story of sacrifice and resolve. Garfield at least gives Larson an endearing vulnerability. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Simran HansNov 14, 2021
Alexandra Shipp is a grounding presence as Larson’s girlfriend, Susan, while Garfield fizzes with energy and outsize emotion. He’s a fabulous crier and pitch-perfect as a shrill, preening narcissist who manages, against the odds, to remain resolutely likable. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeNov 12, 2021
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s translation of the late Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical musical, a cult hit off-Broadway in the early 1990s, asks a lot of even the most indulgent audience. Read full review
60
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganNov 11, 2021
Strenuously heartfelt, Tick,Tick…Boom! belts it out like a pro, but increasingly feels as if it’s raising the volume to an emptying room. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerNov 11, 2021
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut is an affectionate, if flawed, Valentine to both musical theatre and the art of creativity — some bum notes, some strong moments. Tick, tick… the jury’s out. Read full review
50
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiNov 17, 2021
While Andrew Garfield gives a driven and kinetic performance as Larson, Tick, Tick… Boom! is messy, missing a distinct spark and emotional depth. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 16, 2021
Unfortunately, Garfield isn’t a musical force of nature or anything close. His mere sufficiency in that department is the wavering note to which the entire movie is tuned and which, for all its many virtues, makes the film slip away from its emotional center. Read full review
42
The PlaylistAndrew BundyNov 11, 2021
Not so surprisingly, it’s a movie made by theatre geeks, for theatre geeks, though feasibly to a severe fault. In other words: if you know the songs and faces on screen, you’re bound to enjoy it infinitely more than a casual movie-goer will. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 22, 2021
it plays more like a drama kid’s fever dream. Overly self-aware, unfailingly melodramatic and very, very pleased with itself, it’s not half as clever — or a third as entertaining — as it seems to think it is. Read full review
38
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 1, 2021
Garfield is fine, if a bit one-note in his show-must-go-on energy. The real issue is that the film is maniacally focused on Larson as the uber-struggling artist in a way that eventually feels monstrous, devouring any other character or concern that happens to cross its path. Read full review
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