Victoria and Abdul
Focus Features | Release Date: September 22, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
14
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedSep 27, 2017
Judi Dench can do no wrong, and playing Queen Victoria for the second time in the richly satisfying Victoria and Abdul is an acting lesson par excellence that proves how rapturous it is to watch this great artist do everything right. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 26, 2017
Start to finish, it’s a bloody delightful romp. Read full review
82
The AtlanticChristopher OrrJan 9, 2018
Victoria & Abdul is worth seeing for Dench’s magisterial performance and for Frears’s light but sure directorial touch. Just don’t mistake it for actual history. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamSep 12, 2017
This funny, touching adap of Shrabani Basu’s 2010 biography has its own chemistry, withering wit and unsentimental message of acceptance. A royal treat. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinSep 11, 2017
A sorta-sequel to Mrs Brown deals effectively with another of Queen Victoria’s unconventional friendships and reprises Judi Dench’s powerful and unparalleled portrayal. Read full review
75
Original-CinKaren GordonJan 4, 2019
Victoria and Abdul is a beautiful looking costume drama with a dream cast. It may not be much of a surprise that Dame Judi Dench turns in another absolutely beautiful performance. But it is always joy to watch her in action. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 29, 2017
Frears isn’t just telling a pleasant story about an unusual friendship; he’s asking us to take a look at whether we have advanced as far in 120 years as we believe we have. The question lingers after the movie is over. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 28, 2017
Victoria & Abdul is a small tale well told, a modest historical biopic allowing Dench a remarkable encore. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonSep 28, 2017
Victoria & Abdul, though, is Dench’s show. She wrings dignity and humanity (and a good deal of comedy) from Lee Hall’s broadly drawn scenario, much as she did in this movie’s cross-cultural bookend, "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldSep 27, 2017
Thanks to Dench, Victoria & Abdul is constantly engaging and at times moving. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSep 27, 2017
The story told in Victoria and Abdul is so far-fetched that it really helps to know that it is, in its broad outlines, true. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaSep 23, 2017
This sturdy regal period piece provides a perfect opportunity to properly adore the 82-year-old legend as she revisits the role of Queen Victoria two decades after first playing the indomitable monarch in “Mrs. Brown.” Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 23, 2017
Uneven but endearing. Read full review
70
Little White LiesKatherine McLaughlinJul 27, 2023
For the most part, though, Frears and co poke fun at the monarchy and do a decent job at presenting the complex relationship between India and England. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 16, 2017
Fine performances from a cast of pros generally win out over the story's more formulaic aspects. Read full review
67
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 16, 2017
Victoria & Abdul is a movie that flirts with exploring prejudice, cultural tension, power, and religion, but never really consummates the ideas. At best, it tries to humorously dismantle the absurdity of empires and royalty, but that’s about as subversive as it gets. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorSep 28, 2017
Frears has attempted to fashion a contemporary message of diversity and inclusion delivered by a tolerant and culturally inquisitive Queen in opposition to her hide-bound and racist courtiers, but in the end that theme is undercut by the film's own Eurocentric realities. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneySep 27, 2017
There’s a reason the names in the title don’t appear in alphabetical order. Abdul is the far more interesting character, but it’s her majesty the movie dotes on. God save the queen? Oh yes, and God help the rest of us. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 21, 2017
Lucky for us, Dench and Frears pick up the slack and turn slim pickings into a fun time at the movies. But Victoria & Abdul could have been oh so much more. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 28, 2017
It’s a fascinating story with particular contemporary relevance. And it should be better. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 25, 2017
The film’s attempt to portray the Queen as more politically enlightened than her courtiers is kindly but unconvincing, and many of the actors bark and behave as if participating in a spoof. Read full review
60
The New York TimesGlenn KennySep 21, 2017
In the shift from comedy to drama the movie goes wobbly. Read full review
60
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 16, 2017
The film’s lavish production values and a comic register more impish than truly acerbic makes this a surprisingly cosy piece of luxury heritage cinema. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 16, 2017
Frears’ film is all nostalgia and inertia – a tale ablaze with historical import and contemporary resonance, reduced to commemorative biscuit tin proportions. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 16, 2017
Even Dench, while adeptly highlighting the vulnerabilities of age and the loneliness of power, can’t distract from the soft treatment, which leaves little room for the harsh realities of prejudice which must have made this a more painful and ugly chapter for many involved than this film ever dares suggest. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 16, 2017
Victoria & Abdul is a pleasant enough entertainment, and it will bring the inevitable awards chatter Dench’s way (is her acting ever less than pinpoint? Never). But as prestige period pieces go, it’s far from top-drawer (more like second drawer, or even third), because its cozy lack of enlightenment is echoed in the standard but far from scintillating play of its drama. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 4, 2017
As pleasantly amusing as Victoria & Abdul is, the film is really little more than another showcase for Judi Dench’s reigning talent. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 28, 2017
The chief — though hardly the only — problem with Victoria & Abdul is that too much political correctness proves to be as bad for drama as too little. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 22, 2017
For all the anti-colonialist sentiments expressed in Victoria & Abdul...those criticisms are ultimately subsumed in a warm, troubling glow of British Empire nostalgia. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerSep 18, 2017
It’s just another piece of well-decorated regal real estate. Read full review
50
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 16, 2017
There’s not much to Victoria & Abdul, but as a delivery system for Judi Dench, it serves its purpose. Otherwise, it’s just Buckingham Palace fetishism cranked up to peak mumsy. Read full review
42
IndieWireBen CrollSep 16, 2017
Victoria & Abdul is an otherwise benignly toothless, pleasantly glossy affair, but it does force us to confront one tricky question: When treating a subject as fraught as British imperial rule, when does a film’s benign inoffensiveness become offensive in and of itself? Read full review
40
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 16, 2017
What a peculiarly dodgy, conservative film this is – a lazy salute to a good queen and her faithful Indian servant. It’s a film about the Raj era that looks as if it was made back then, too. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaSep 18, 2017
By privileging the white characters in its narrative, Victoria & Abdul exposes itself as insidiously hypocritical. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanSep 28, 2017
Victoria and Abdul might have aimed for poignancy — and at times it almost strikes that tone — but for the most part, it plays like broadly clownish comedy, treating crusty British prejudice with all the subtlety of “The Benny Hill Show.” Read full review
20
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 16, 2017
It is difficult to work out what to dislike most about Victoria and Abdul: the literal foot-licking or the cliché-ridden plot, but the greatest shame is the waste of a genuinely fascinating piece of history and a world-class Judi Dench performance. Read full review
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