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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
80
Mixed:
28
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
The GuardianJun 22, 2026
Season 3 Review:
This show has found its focus. The start of season three is a fine epic, balancing big battles with sharp two-hander scenes where dominance shifts and fatal personality flaws are forced out. Add the odd new face and a blast of comic relief here and there and you have proper Thrones.
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Jun 22, 2026
Season 3 Review:
It’s still a show you have to watch with the Wiki at hand. .... Fortunately, the third season, the first half of which was shown to critics in advance, finally starts to zero in on what feels like it might be the show’s core story, which is less to do with the rise and fall of the Targaryen family fortunes than what bloody wars of succession do to the people those squabbling rulers are meant to rule
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Jun 22, 2026
Season 3 Review:
Season 3 of "House" still has too many forgettable and stilted characters (who can even remember little Rhaena Targaryen and her dragon problems, and why is she suddenly so important?) and not nearly enough oomph behind its biggest conflicts, even with two seasons' worth of backstory in its wake. But there are glimmers of hope, particularly after the first two (sadly) table-setting episodes, that there is some honest-to-goodness storytelling momentum here.
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Jun 22, 2026
Season 3 Review:
Alongside him [Corlys Velaryon], the Battle Of The Gullet, with all its impressive moving parts and tragic payoffs, makes good on the promise of House Of The Dragon. Its drama fuses family tensions and dragon warfare into a spectacle that never loses sight of the people caught in its chaos, and better still, a thrilling glimpse of the battles yet to come.
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RogerEbert.comJun 15, 2026
Season 3 Review:
Thankfully, this adaptation is finally beginning to explore the core themes of Martin’s novels. While there are certain changes in character motivations that don’t necessarily work, the politicking that once felt lackluster actually has consequences, and watching these events unfold is more thrilling than ever.
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Jun 15, 2026
Season 3 Review:
Each new episode zips along, its concise presentation never shortchanging character or narrative intelligence. Schemes and themes that were meticulously, and often tediously, set up in Season 2 pay off with swift, delectable complications — twists best discovered firsthand.
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Jun 15, 2026
Season 3 Review:
The series is still too packed, too narratively rushed and, as much as I’m certain passionate fans will disagree, the surplus of dragons and special effects has become somewhat anticlimactic. But! The third episode of the season and, to a lesser degree, the fourth were my favorite House of the Dragon episodes to date.
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The TelegraphJun 15, 2026
Season 3 Review:
House of the Dragon only really settles into its groove when the watery strife is out of the way and the story switches to, among other things, political manoeuvrings and the day-to-day demands of running a kingdom – such as dealing with uppity woolworkers or starving peasants.
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ColliderJun 15, 2026
Season 3 Review:
This review is only based on the first four episodes of Season 3, which is to say that Season 2 was also amazing up until Rook's Rest in Episode 4, and things could certainly change in the back half. But as it is now, despite all the stumbling blocks along the way, House of the Dragon is still spectacle TV worth tuning in for.
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IndieWireJun 15, 2026
Season 3 Review:
Season 3 is a joyless exercise that’s nonetheless an improvement on the wayward Season 2. Not only does the opening hour pay off on the eight episodes of build-up that first aired two years ago, but the ensuing half-season benefits from the focus and unification lent by the results. (Four episodes were provided for review.)
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Radio TimesJun 15, 2026
The TimesSep 11, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Away from all the blond ambition, the tussle between Otto and the Richard III-alike Larys Strong (Matthew Needham’s thoroughgoing baddie with the walking stick) feels more promising, especially with Larys quietly killing suspected traitors and sneakily lobbying the king against his ageing rival. On another positive note, it looks magnificent.
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Jun 19, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Most of the show’s characters continue to lack the kind of depth that made so many in the Thrones ensemble irresistible to watch, even when they did the nastiest things. The Targaryens have thin, uniform motivations in Season 2—that is, to survive and win. Little character development occurs, and potent emotional arcs are rare.
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The GuardianJun 18, 2024
Season 2 Review:
This slow opener starts to build up the story with steady, elegant layers, allowing it to weave its melancholy magic. I still think it is strange that a show about dragons should be so bashful, but somehow, despite this stubborn tendency to talk everything through, House of the Dragon once more becomes unmissable and thrilling television. Eventually.
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Jun 17, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Showrunner Ryan Condal’s talky, character-driven approach has its downsides. There are still too many names and subplots. To let so much political and personal friction develop requires slowing the action to a pace that might frustrate anyone who’s mostly here to watch dragons brûlée people. (For those who might be wondering, the dragon riding still looks as goofy as ever.) But by de-emphasizing—and deglamorizing—combat, in favor of enriching central characters, closely tracking each side’s machinations, and questioning the very premise of a just war, the series harkens back to the early seasons of Game of Thrones.
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Jun 17, 2024
Season 2 Review:
It’s a pretty stellar season premiere, quite frankly, with more than enough rich narrative, scheming families, dragons, and sumptuous costumes to quench the thirst of any Game Of Thrones fan. .... Oh sure, there’s times when this episode feels like a crib sheet, hellbent on reminding us exactly who everyone is and what their motives are, but it’s been a hot minute since the HOTD season-one finale, quite frankly, and we could all use the help.
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Jun 14, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Even when things slow to a crawl as one side or another plots, schemes, argues and/or tries to make alliances, the production values are never less than excellent, what with all the cavernous interiors and the abundance of candles and ooh, they have such great maps.
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Jun 14, 2024
Season 2 Review:
There’s a sense of diminishing returns here, especially after the nine previous seasons of dragon-based intrigue and bloody, sexy fantasy infighting. Granted, a showstopping dragon battle awaits us at the season’s halfway point, a lovely showcase for HBO’s castle-sized VFX budget that breaks up all the monologuing and politicking of the prior episodes. Let’s hope that’s a portent for the season’s latter half to pick up steam.
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Jun 13, 2024
Jun 6, 2024
Season 2 Review:
For fans of Westeros — its incestuous soap opera, lavish world-building, and theatrical tragedy — House of the Dragon Season 2 delivers everything you love and then some. It’s I, Claudius with movie monsters, medieval history sprinkled with magic. .... House of the Dragon Season 2 is spectacular to behold, even if what’s unfolding is absolutely terrible.
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The IndependentJun 6, 2024
Season 2 Review:
While it takes a few episodes for House of the Dragon to crescendo into the sort of grand, violent spectacle that the series (and its predecessor) does better than pretty much anything else on TV, there are enough nuggets of incident in the opening couple of hours to satisfy viewers’ bloodlust.
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The TelegraphJun 6, 2024
Season 2 Review:
If the show lacks something, it is an old-fashioned hero. Everyone is cruel and conniving – half have the classic Targaryen blonde look, too, which adds to the confusion – and the script cries out for a morally pure character in the mould of Thrones’s Ned Stark or Jon Snow. But these are mere quibbles. Summer is coming, and for those eager for an alternative to sunburn, football and queues at the airport, House of the Dragon has all you could require for a roaring good time.
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LooperJun 6, 2024
Season 2 Review:
There are times where "House of the Dragon" feels like it's simply covering historical material rather than telling a story, but for the most part, we're able to buy into the plight of the characters, especially the ones that we've spent the most amount of time with. Between its political maneuvering, trademark set pieces, and engaging main characters, "House of the Dragon" continues to impress in its second season.
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Radio TimesJun 6, 2024
SlashfilmJun 6, 2024
Season 2 Review:
I can't imagine that season 2 will win new "House of the Dragon" fans. .... But those who are invested in Westeros will find those same sublime pleasures front and center. If you like dragons and battles and shocking acts of brutality, you're in for a treat. And if you like quiet, whispered conversations in castle corridors, you're going to have a real good time. In short, "House of the Dragon" is a gift for "Game of Thrones" fans.
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Jun 6, 2024
Season 2 Review:
House of the Dragon is still beautifully made and performed in season 2’s opening pair of lengthy episodes, but these messy family dynamics can be frustrating rather than fascinating when there’s so much at stake and so little being done to actually address the problems or advance the cause of either side of this brewing war.
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ColliderJun 6, 2024
Season 2 Review:
Season 2 still keeps book readers on their toes by altering and rewriting aspects, elaborating on controversial events, and delving deeper into the psyche of our leads. The season is full of unexpected twists, including surprising schemes, character pairings, and appearances. It's undeniable that House of the Dragon Season 2 flourishes in a way Game of Thrones never could.
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Aug 24, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It’s mainstream fantasy, blessed with sumptuous costumes, compelling settings and those “Avatar”-like swooping dragons. Dragons, in fact, turn up just when the plot needs them most. When the house seems like it’s going to fall, they’re there to shore it up. ... It’s good; it still has time to be great.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It is less sprawling and dense, and there is no wit-spouting equivalent to fan favorite Tyrion Lannister. But the confident storytelling and the epic setting may be immersive enough to sway even those still bitter about the “Game of Thrones” finale. Is it as good as “Thrones”? It’s too early to say, but the first episodes are compelling in their own way — think “Succession” with sharp swords instead of sharp words.
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The PlaylistAug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It’s refreshing to see a show with creators who have clearly considered things like framing, pacing, and detail. “House of the Dragon” can get more than a little talky. ... And yet it’s really this choice to go back to political dynamics that helps “House of the Dragon” escape the shadow of the end of “Game of Thrones.”
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
[The series makers] reliance on sadism, cruelty and occasional disemboweling suggests either an adolescent impulse to push the violence as far as it will go or an understanding that what bonds the "Game of Thrones" community is a shared stomach for edgy mayhem. ... Only the first six episodes were made available for review, but those chapters establish a very convincing world and its people.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The most thrilling or unsettling surprises of the original show were rooted in character, and so it is with the new series. It’s too bad “House of the Dragon” takes such a long time to define and shade the Targaryens and those in their orbit. But once it’s done, their viciousness gleams all the more against the darkness.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
HBO has followed the majesty of "Game of Thrones" with what might be called "games of throne" in "House of the Dragon," a series whose epic visual grandeur belies a smaller and less addictive power struggle, more narrowly focused on the Targaryen line. It's not bad, and there are dragons aplenty, but it doesn't produce the sort of characters that defined and elevated its predecessor to prestige-TV royalty.
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CNETAug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Halfway through the second episode, instead of reminiscing about the Starks and the Lannisters, my focus became entirely fixed on the Targaryens. House of the Dragon may never be the next Game of Thrones but, from the six hours I've seen, it looks poised to at least step out of the giant shadow its predecessor casts.
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The IndependentAug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
The highest compliment I can pay House of the Dragon is to observe how much it feels like Game of Thrones. ... The dynamics of court, and the characters within it, are well drawn. Smith, in particular, gives a satisfyingly ambivalent performance as a slightly creepy uncle with a tremendous bloodlust.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
While honoring the legacy and look of the original series, the spinoff wisely adopts subtle changes in tone and approach while introducing a fresh world of characters and storylines. ... The exchange between mother and daughter, and the artful contrast of dueling knights and dutiful midwives, are powerful enough on their own to render the first episode a smashing success and show that “House of the Dragon” has a depth of understanding of its female characters that “GoT” took years to find. But it doesn’t stop there. ... Engrossing.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
That day may come for them, too, when the pressures of extending the show and inventing new twists and turns begins to weigh them down. For now, though, I’m happy to report that they know their dragon, they’ve harnessed its power, and in Season 1, they’re pouring on the fire.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
House of the Dragon is more Game of Thrones. And it turns out Game of Thrones still works. Watching British actors talking quietly about high-stakes politics in well-appointed rooms still has the power to thrill, even if it does feel a bit too safe and over-familiar.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
There’s much to praise in this show’s telling a new story that still chimes familiar themes, a succession drama that’s of Westeros but not reheated. ... But the show can, at times, be more easily admired than watched. ... Scenes tend toward the short and pointedly written, giving us much data but only the general contours of characters.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Sometimes the series overreaches in its effort to be bloodier, sexier, more risqué. ... But it is, for the most part, just fine to be back in Martin’s robust and intriguing history, an intricate tangle of noble houses, doomed knights, scheming strivers, and hopeless dopes.
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The TelegraphAug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
It’s well made. It’s brilliantly shot. It seethes with tension. And I’m dying to know what happens next, particularly after the shocking end to episode six. It’s just that Game of Thrones – well, the first seven-eighths of Game of Thrones – set a dauntingly high bar.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
With quality direction and cinematography, strong writing that combines political intrigue, family melodramatics and some impressively nasty twists and turns, and powerful performances from a cast that includes a number of familiar and well-decorated and mostly British veterans along with some greatly talented relative newcomers, “House of the Dragon” has the gravitas and visceral gut-punch effectiveness of a series that could be with us for a very long time.
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Aug 19, 2022
Season 1 Review:
So the show wants the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent to take center stage. But the early episodes bungle their dynamic, with an unspecific friendship that's relegated to the sidelines. The drama heightens when clear battle lines get drawn. ... Dragon doesn't soar immediately, but no House was built in a day.
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