Wonder Wheel
Amazon Studios | Release Date: December 1, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
17
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
IndieWireEric KohnOct 13, 2017
Winslet delivers her most powerful, emotionally resonant performance in more than a decade. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Dec 5, 2017
It’s not top Woody, perhaps. What is, anymore? But on a cold day, it’s as welcome as the familiar smell of greasy fries, the feel of gritty sand, the winking of those far-off colored lights. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlNov 30, 2017
The camerawork in Allen’s customary long takes is fluid, even arresting, but Winslet’s performance would benefit from the kind of editing these long takes don’t allow. Rather than loose, the ensemble often seems underrehearsed, and too many of Winslet’s lines have little impact. Read full review
80
Screen DailyGraham FullerOct 16, 2017
It would be going too far to say Wonder Wheel is an instant Woody Allen classic, but it’s a reminder that he’s still a force to be reckoned with and a great director of actresses especially. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonDec 14, 2017
Like the fairground ride for which it’s named, Wonder Wheel is entertaining but not enlightening. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 6, 2017
In almost any other filmmaker’s oeuvre, this film would be considered a highlight. But for the director who made “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Match Point” and “Blue Jasmine”? It’s right up there with “Melinda and Melinda” and “Scoop.” Good, not great. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedDec 5, 2017
It may not be one of the best, most inspired and fully realized classics in the master director’s oeuvre, but it towers above almost everything else in the junk pile of 2017 year-end releases. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 30, 2017
There are valid criticisms of Wonder Wheel as a film that feels more like a stage play – its claustrophobic atmosphere can be stifling. But even covering familiar ground, Allen finds the blunt truth at its core. As Ginny is stripped of her fantasies and exposed to the harsh glare of reality, Winslet stands her ground, as if to say attention must be paid. It should be. Her performance is absolutely astounding. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanOct 13, 2017
It’s got movement and flow, it’s got a vibrant sunset look of honky-tonk nostalgia, and it’s got a bittersweet mood of lyrical despair that the film stays true to right up until the final note. It’s also strikingly acted. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 1, 2017
Movies don’t become great by association, and Wonder Wheel is a far cry from “Streetcar.” There are ample flaws in this film, but they certainly don’t rise to the level of tragic. Read full review
67
The PlaylistKimber MyersOct 13, 2017
This is an imperfect, if entirely beautiful, film. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'HaraMar 12, 2018
The film’s glowing, golden cinematography suggests a far warmer story than it in fact delivers, but Winslet’s stunning turn is worth a look if you can stand the consciously stagey feel. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 20, 2017
Like that giant metaphorical carousel looming over them, it’s a movie that’s spinning its wheels. Read full review
50
The New YorkerRichard BrodyDec 5, 2017
The tangled plot is decorated in gaudy colors (thanks to the cinematographer Vittorio Storaro) that contrast sadly with the sordid doings. Read full review
50
Paste MagazineKyle TurnerOct 19, 2017
Winslet is doing an impression of Cate Blanchett doing an impression of Mia Farrow in September. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 14, 2017
Watching the rest of the movie, I wondered if Allen had discovered the script in an old file cabinet (maybe meant as a play?) and appended that meta intro to account for how obvious and old-hat the rest of it is. Probably a good strategy. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineGreg CwikOct 14, 2017
The tone throughout vacillates wildly from silly comedy to classic Hollywood melodrama, and all of it feels as artificial and unsatisfying as the cotton candy twirling in a vending cart. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyOct 13, 2017
The warming affection that the director has bestowed on so many of his best characters is largely missing. In fact, he seems barely engaged. Read full review
50
TheWrapDan CallahanOct 13, 2017
Allen is too self-aware and cold a creative personality to create a genuine tragedy in Wonder Wheel. Instead, he makes a gesture towards a tragic situation. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Nov 30, 2017
Wonder Wheel is uncomfortably revealing, its real-life parallels too blatant to be anything but intentional. But to what end? Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyNov 30, 2017
It’s undercooked even by the filmmaker’s own late-career standards. Yes, Coney Island has never looked more gorgeously golden-hued (thanks to cinematographer Vittorio Storaro), but Allen has seldom been less sharp. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 12, 2018
It isn’t Allen escaping into the past so much as defensively dredging it up, script-wise. And though he’s hired another world-class cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro, to give this the gaudy hypercoloured glow of a pastichey Douglas Sirk melodrama, the film’s look is pushy and unattractive, as if it’s wearing too much lipstick. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottDec 14, 2017
Even when he isn't at the top of his game -- and in Wonder Wheel, he certainly isn't -- Allen's films still tend to have something intriguing to offer. Read full review
40
Vanity FairRichard LawsonDec 9, 2017
There is simultaneously a beautiful movie and a good play hidden somewhere in Woody Allen’s new melodrama, Wonder Wheel, a slight and clunky period piece that offers teasing glimpses of something more rich and interesting. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisDec 6, 2017
Unlike "Manhattan," this perfunctorily conceived film about an unhappy woman starved for romantic and personal fulfillment never lives up to its brilliant production values. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 30, 2017
Because of its look, some fine period music including the Mills Brothers version of "Coney Island Washboard," and actors giving it their best effort, Wonder Wheel is not as completely forgettable as it would otherwise be. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 30, 2017
Wonder Wheel, Woody Allen’s latest movie, is one of his more unfortunate contributions to cinema. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeOct 13, 2017
It’s by no means the worst of Allen’s later films (Cassandra’s Dream remains unrivaled in that department) and the flashes of brilliance from Winslet and stunning visuals do lift it but there’s an overwhelming, existential pointlessness to it all. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 18, 2017
The movie borders on abhorrent. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 12, 2017
Wonder Wheel seems more like a cobbled-together afterthought than the romantic melodrama it seeks to be. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldDec 7, 2017
It’s just a bad movie; a flat melodrama in which some lovely camerawork and a ferocious central performance from Winslet can’t conceal the rote tiredness of it all. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 7, 2017
On its own “merits,” it would still be a dud. A sluggish, uninspired, period-piece retread of so many earlier and much better Allen films, filled with overly familiar characters and situations and of course a soundtrack seemingly selected from Woody’s personal record collection. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorDec 7, 2017
Although Wonder Wheel begins with a few of the witty ruptures of the fourth wall that have often enlivened Allen's work, it soon descends into a bleak melodrama that is little more than warmed-over Tennessee Williams. Read full review
38
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonDec 7, 2017
A very sloppy piece of work, apart from the cinematography, which is pretty, and the Mills Brothers songs, which are fantastic. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyNov 29, 2017
Turgid even in its brightness, overwritten in a way that does nothing to camoflauge its first-draft quality, jaw-droppingly overacted by all but one of its central cast members; it’s a Woody Allen disaster that elicits both a cocked head and a dropped jaw. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanDec 7, 2017
Wonder Wheel may be scenic, but it goes nowhere — and slowly. Read full review
25
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 14, 2017
Wonder Wheel is one of Allen’s worst movies. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 7, 2017
In code, Wonder Wheel dances along the edge of the writer-director’s off-screen life, namely the allegations by Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adopted daughter, of sexual molestation, and Allen’s controversial marriage to Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Allen’s then-partner Mia Farrow. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 6, 2017
Wonder Wheel, Allen’s new film, is one of the Very Bad Ones. Set in a post-WWII Coney Island that glows with the hues of popsicles at sunset, it’s a strained adultery melodrama that appears to have been written poorly on purpose, as a sour parody of 1950s theatrical clichés. Read full review
20
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghDec 7, 2017
The dialogue is agony. Read full review
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