TRON: Ares
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date: October 10, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
26
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzOct 7, 2025
TRON: Ares is spectacularly designed, swiftly paced, thoughtfully written, and directed within an inch of its neon-hued life. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiOct 7, 2025
Forty-three years later, “Tron: Ares” is groundbreaking for being the first “Tron” film with a discernible plot. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyOct 7, 2025
How do you go back and yet forward at the same time? The filmmakers have rather cleverly done that by incorporating plot points from the first two movies and building out with new characters and blurring the divide between flesh and digital worlds. Read full review
70
The Daily BeastNick SchagerOct 7, 2025
In an age of bland, unimaginative cookie-cutter blockbusters, there’s something refreshing about a movie that puts a premium on looking and sounding badass. Read full review
70
ColliderRoss BonaimeOct 7, 2025
Tron: Ares isn’t likely to turn Tron into the major franchise Disney has clearly wanted it to be for decades, but it is a sign that the company has a smarter understanding of what these movies need to be: exciting to look at, with a great soundtrack, and with a story that’s dumb fun. Tron: Ares not only achieves that, but finds fun ways to fit in the other installments that make you actually want to see more installments in this world, as opposed to having them forced upon us. Tron: Ares isn’t a killer app, but it is a solid upgrade. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyOct 7, 2025
It’s no sci-fi insta-classic, but there are worse things to be than a surprisingly entertaining post-summer popcorn bucket. Read full review
68
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeOct 7, 2025
TRON: Ares throws in a few half-baked ideas about ethics in the tech world, but its main agenda is to be big, loud, fast, and eye-popping, and on that level — and only that level — it’s a complete success. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerOct 7, 2025
The result is a pretty dumb movie with beautiful visual effects, cleanly shot action, and a kickass soundtrack. Wouldn’t it be great if the future of blockbusters was only this bleak? Read full review
67
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerOct 7, 2025
TRON: Ares doesn’t seem poised to change the culture in anything resembling a similar way; while it has a lot more life to it than the inert TRON: Legacy, Ares keeps its focus on big spectacle as opposed to big ideas. Read full review
64
Paste MagazineJason GorberOct 8, 2025
The film’s a lot of fun, but it’s more empty than it needs to be, and even the piercing intensity of Leto (who also serves as one of the film’s producers) doesn’t allow one to take this nearly as seriously as it takes itself. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 14, 2025
Tron: Ares is fan service at its finest: a bold, brash spectacle that can’t get enough of its Easter eggs and callbacks. But there are two problems with this approach: it can be alienating for those outside the inner circle, and it prioritizes sensory overload over storytelling. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshOct 9, 2025
Rønning, who helmed a later “Pirates of the Caribbean” film and “Young Woman and the Sea,” provides serviceable direction of the material without offering much innovation. The film loses fidelity toward the end, as it becomes a crashy, pixelated monster movie, as the real world has no capability for hosting the sleek, bloodless appeal of the grid. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesDominic BaezOct 8, 2025
If all you want out of your Tron movie is amazing visuals, a great score and some fun action sequences with light cycles, cool weapons and even a Recognizer, “Ares” will execute that command. Anything more, though, and it all starts to get a little glitchy. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonOct 7, 2025
To say that Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross go hard on the music would be an understatement. There were times when their beats vibrated through my theater chair, goosing me into thinking “Tron: Ares” is better than it is. Their contribution propels the action and makes you believe in the visual bedlam unfolding before you. Read full review
60
The RevealKeith PhippsOct 16, 2025
Through it all, Reznor and Ross keep the music pulsing in time to the action and for some thrilling, surprisingly long stretches, that’s all the movie needs. Read full review
60
NMEMatt MaytumOct 16, 2025
Director Joachim Rønning (the surprisingly decent fifth Pirates Of The Caribbean) is a safe pair of hands. He doesn’t deliver any massive surprises but confidently marshals an entertaining instalment that sits comfortably alongside its predecessors. Read full review
60
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonOct 9, 2025
Ranked against other “Tron” feature-length installments, while this one fails to capture the adolescent low-fi charm of the 1982 film, it’s appreciably more enjoyable (and, frankly, comprehensible) than “Legacy.” Read full review
60
LooperDominic GriffinOct 8, 2025
Though it may sound like a fascinating sci-fi rumination on the intersection of technology and human life, "Ares" works best as a rollicking action picture with some strong visuals and incredible soundscapes. It lacks the acting acumen and depth of writing to achieve much more.  Read full review
60
Radio TimesJames MottramOct 7, 2025
Certainly, this lacks the cheekiness of, say, M3GAN. With the exception of an amusing riff about Depeche Mode (better than Mozart, according to Ares), it requires a much-needed humour injection. In Tron terms, the future is less bright than po-faced. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonOct 7, 2025
For all the creativity on display in Tron: Ares, it’s in service of a story with scant signs of life. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerOct 7, 2025
The best performance in the film actually comes from Gillian Anderson as Julian’s overbearing mother. Read full review
60
EmpireJohn NugentOct 7, 2025
It has about as much depth as a floppy disk, but some lovely, shiny CGI and a stunningly ear-shattering score from Nine Inch Nails makes for a fun if forgettable bit of futuristic fluff. Bio-digital jazz, man! Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichOct 7, 2025
Leto’s performance works because he’s so utterly believable as a soulless ghoul that it’s easy to buy into the happy-to-be-here warmth of his emergent humanity. Read full review
55
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 16, 2025
It’s another superficial, techno-futuristic tale that emphasizes its glossy look over its heady concept. Read full review
55
PolygonSamantha NelsonOct 8, 2025
Rønning’s dazzling action sequences and the killer soundtrack might be enough to satisfy fans, but Tron: Ares feels just as likely to get lost among a sea of the type of films Tron inspired. Read full review
50
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezOct 10, 2025
Ultimately, Tron: Ares is all voltage and no current—an aesthetic overload that confuses stimulation for meaning. Read full review
50
Rolling StoneDavid FearOct 7, 2025
Look, it’s not like Tron: Ares, the third entry in this film series that now spans four decades, doesn’t have a few things going for it. Read full review
50
The Irish TimesTara BradyOct 7, 2025
Thankfully, Tron: Ares is less ponderous than Tron: Legacy, and the music is turned up to 11 in the hope you won’t notice all the shortcomings. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeOct 7, 2025
While it was exciting to see what “Tron” might look like in the 21st century, the brand gets in the way of Ares’ internal evolution. However fascinating it might be to watch him “level up,” what audiences expect — and what Rønning delivers — are cycle races and dynamic gladiator battles. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittOct 7, 2025
Beat-thumping techno songs and score by Nine Inch Nails help it all go down easier, as does OG “Tron” guy Jeff Bridges dude-ing up a few scenes, but traveling to that nifty high-tech landscape in this third "Tron" outing has become a chore rather than a pleasure. Read full review
50
Total FilmEmily GarbuttOct 7, 2025
A serviceable blockbuster falls short of being truly fun by swapping the Grid for a real-world setting. Despite a good lead performance from Greta Lee and a great score, Ares lacks the charm and silliness of its Tron predecessors after one upgrade too many. Read full review
50
IGNClint GageOct 7, 2025
Tron: Ares somehow forgets where it came from and relentlessly revisits the original, only making the latest version of the Grid paler by comparison. Read full review
45
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 8, 2025
Ares is a mostly disposable and thoroughly dumb product of lazy franchise fetishism from filmmakers who could not seem to care less about what story they are trying to tell. But as a two-hour visual screensaver to a thunderous and hypnotic Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, Ares rules. Read full review
40
StatusBrian LowryOct 10, 2025
In what amounts to damnation with the faintest of praise, Tron: Ares is slightly less incoherent than its most recent predecessor (granted, not a particularly high bar), while taking advantage of the passage of time to improve on the visuals, since “Legacy’s” de-aging process involving original star Jeff Bridges served as a lifeless distraction. Read full review
40
Time OutDan JolinOct 8, 2025
Despite grasping for topicality and insight into human nature, Tron: Ares doesn’t have anything new or interesting to say. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerOct 7, 2025
Rønning doesn’t seem confident in his storytelling acumen, relying instead on running narration provided by real-life TV anchors cold-reading the least convincing announcements this side of a Fox News host talking about Portland. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreOct 7, 2025
Mostly, when you watch Tron: Ares, you become aware of the degree to which this franchise has exhausted its own metaphor. Read full review
40
SlashfilmWitney SeiboldOct 7, 2025
Jared Leto also proves to be a less-than-stellar leading man. Read full review
40
Next Best PictureGiovanni LagoOct 7, 2025
If anything, Tron: Ares is less a film than a cinematic pin dropped in a franchise map that’s going absolutely nowhere. Read full review
40
Screen RantTodd GilchristOct 7, 2025
The movie possesses reams of intriguing ideas, but instead reheats much of Legacy's plot and then busies itself with semi-incomprehensible set pieces. Read full review
39
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiOct 7, 2025
Tron: Ares has, in no uncertain terms, a great frickin’ soundtrack. The movie, on other hand, completely sucks. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 14, 2025
The sad truth of the matter is that Disney took 15 years to make a sequel and never came up with a compelling story for that sequel to tell, and spent all that money without casting anybody who’d hold our interest dashing through all this red-neon nothingness for two hours. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJake ColeOct 7, 2025
For a story that seeks to champion the unpredictability and finite quality of life, Ares ultimately feels trapped by the inertia of working within the parameters set by its no less flimsy predecessors. Read full review
30
The Travers TakePeter TraversOct 11, 2025
A numbingly dull follow-up to two “TRON” epics that even Jared Leto and a great score by Nine Inch Nails can’t make great again. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithOct 10, 2025
The potential for an interesting sci-fi spectacle is there, at least at the start, but Tron: Ares does nothing with it. Read full review
30
Little White LiesKambole CampbellOct 8, 2025
To the film’s credit there’s a dedication to figuring out some impressive practical effects work in this clash of two worlds, but this is sadly undermined by the actual composition of the action sequences, which swing between feeling inert or overly busy. Read full review
20
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 7, 2025
The music’s great, but this Jared Leto vehicle is otherwise an ethically dubious, horribly written nadir in franchise slop. Read full review
20
The TelegraphRobbie CollinOct 7, 2025
A shambolic film populated by some of the most aggressively charmless characters ever seen in a blockbuster. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 7, 2025
There is no drama or jeopardy or human interest anywhere. This franchise now looks about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player. Read full review
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