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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
37
Mixed:
36
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews
ColliderJun 29, 2023
Season 3 Review:
It's a shame that Cavill won't be present to see the show through to its conclusion, but given what Season 3 of The Witcher establishes in terms of mounting conflict, rich character growth and relationships, and phenomenal performances, there's still plenty worth tuning in for into a fourth season and beyond.
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ColliderDec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The biggest strength for this fantasy show follow-up, and the one that kept me returning for all six episodes given out, is the found family it offers in Geralt and Ciri as they settle into familiarity and trust with one another — with Cavill and Allan effectively playing the kind of duo worth building a long-running franchise around.
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Dec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher Season 2 is the best kind of adaptation. It takes something known and creates something wholly unique while always respecting its source material. No matter if you’ve read and played everything or if you’re entirely new to this world, you’re going to have a blast.
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Jun 29, 2023
Season 3 Review:
Despite the danger they’re all constantly in, it’s a pure delight to finally see the series’ three leads sharing a screen together. And, to its credit, while The Witcher clearly delights in showcasing the charming found family bond between them that viewers have been so long to see, not everything between and among the group is hearts and flowers.
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Dec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher’s second season is vastly more confident about leaning into the high fantasy and higher stakes of Sapkowski’s lore, opting to let characters such as the wizened witcher Vesemir (Kim Bodnia) speak of forgotten histories instead of taking safer, more randy detours. Encouraging still is its stronger focus on maintaining a sense of narrative momentum (gone is the needlessly confusing time-hopping format of season one), at last bestowing upon The Witcher a sense of direction and purpose.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
When the worst thing you can say about a series is that every episode ends up being better than the one that preceded it, that leaves an exciting amount of room to grow. Especially when you can see it steadily moving out of the shadow of the show Netflix might have wanted, in favor of the far more interesting series it might actually turn out to be.
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Dec 20, 2019
Oct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
Though Episode 5, “The Joy of Cooking,” acts as a filler chapter rather than an actual narrative, the rest of the season is well-paced, tonally on point and offers ample screen time to the leading trio, interweaving the immense fable in a way that is accessible and interesting instead of overstuffed and exhausting.
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ColliderOct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
He [Liam Hemsworth] manages to make Geralt his own over the course of the season's eight episodes. That said, Season 4 is further proof that The Witcher has increasingly become about more than just one character. Chalotra's Yennefer has more than earned a spot on the list of all-time fantasy heroines, and Allan has a commanding grasp on Ciri.
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Jul 31, 2023
Season 3.5 Review:
Sometimes it’s nice to just let a show cook, and The Witcher continues to make weird meals with its oodles of diabolical double crosses and inevitable “there’s a spell for that” moments that bang the story off in another new direction. (Seriously, there are portals everywhere.) There’s a bit of uncertainty creeping in, given the backstage drama of Cavill’s departure. But everybody else in this series is fully invested and really, really good.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
While the characters are still reeling from battle, the show itself feels much more assured in the first six (of eight) episodes sent to critics for review. The narrative arc is cleaner, with everyone on the same timeline. The characters are better explained — including key supporting players like Fringilla (Mimî M. Khayisa), who felt frustratingly opaque in season one.
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iDec 15, 2021
The TelegraphDec 10, 2021
ColliderDec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
For all its massive scale, The Witcher is a surprisingly small story centered around three appealing main characters. It’s a classic fantasy tale about war and magic and prophecy, with grotesque monsters, supernatural detective work, and political intrigue thrown into the mix. It’s all a bit silly, but no more so than Game of Thrones ever was.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The barrier for entry with The Witcher is pretty high; between the weird-ass fantasy names, odd story structure, and complicated backstory, it's a lot to take on without a little help. I went in knowing very little, but at some point decided "f--- it, I'm in," and left wanting to know a lot more. If you can add a new project like The Witcher to your life, you should.
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Oct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
It seems safe to admit that this little experiment [recasting Geralt] is more successful than any of us probably expected. .... The character of Yennefer is largely absent from events at this part of the story in Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, so her arc this season is pretty much made up out of whole cloth. And, spoiler alert: it’s fantastic.
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Dec 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Everything’s played a lot straighter, and it’s missing the hot-blooded camp quality the series initially embraced. The show at its core is still pretty enjoyable for a dark fantasy, and the reappearance of rock-star tunesmith Jaskier (Joey Batey), plus new characters like the flame-conjuring rogue mage Rience (Chris Fulton), help in that regard.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher still suffers from the tendency of many fantasy tales to casually mention myriad names of cities, characters, and phenomena to the point of bewilderment, but the proceedings feel far clearer this time around thanks to the season’s tighter focus and the steady drip of context afforded by Yen’s journey.
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The PlaylistDec 13, 2021
Season 2 Review:
“The Witcher” season two marks a distinctly new direction for the bloody and fantastical Polish epic: slowing down, changing its plot structure, and embracing a more down-to-earth attitude towards both narrative and character. Though the predictability and slower pacing means the series lacks the bite it had in season one, season two of “The Witcher” will likely still satisfy fans of the games and TV series alike.
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Oct 30, 2025Jun 29, 2023
Season 3 Review:
The intervening episodes before the two groups link back up at Aretuza are all solid. We already knew the Geralt and Jaskier dynamic works, and Yenn and Ciri figuring out how to be around each other is a nice touch. .... The real problem comes with episode five, an interminable slog that doubles back on itself so many times it becomes exhausting about halfway through. It's Russian Doll season one without the cleverness.
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IndieWireDec 19, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Watching the foundation get laid isn’t always exciting, but it does feel like showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich is building toward rousing sequences and cares about each of the characters equally. Whether you feel the same doesn’t really matter. “The Witcher” is in it for the long haul, and even if Season 2 feels longer than it should, you won’t regret the ride.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
In contrast to its halfhearted approach to exposition, The Witcher finds its footing in the graphic depiction of violence. The show’s energetic battle scenes, set to a stirring score by composers Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, create the impression that the burly, snow-caked background actors of Game of Thrones were moving at three-quarters speed.
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RogerEbert.comOct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
There’s still plenty for “Witcher” fans to enjoy, whether it’s the occasional Whedonesque barb from Jaskier or the monster fights that are still peppered in once in a while to remind us what so appealed about the first couple of seasons. But it’s clear the show is running out of steam, as its new star struggles to step out of the hulking shadow of his predecessor and the story spins an overwhelming number of plates.
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Screen RantOct 30, 2025
Oct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
"Witcher" does not fall apart without Cavill. It does not necessarily rise from the ashes of his departure into a new and better series, either. It remains the kind of high fantasy that will please fans and confuse newcomers, with enough violence per episode to engage the senses.
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The TelegraphOct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
At no point is there even a mild possibility of Hemsworth overshadowing the departed Cavill – who remains the definitive Witcher. But his replacement’s quietly ridiculous turn is nonetheless perfectly attuned to a show that harks back to the days before fantasy was cool and gets by (just about) on sheer silliness.
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Radio TimesJul 27, 2023
Season 3.5 Review:
The finale, meanwhile, has some beautiful moments here and there. Once again, plenty of our cast shine, with some threads being wonderfully tied together. Cavill's final scenes are, unfortunately, somewhat inconsequential, and while the very final moments of the season set up season 4, we have to wonder how much viewers really care.
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RogerEbert.comJun 29, 2023
Season 3 Review:
The double-crossing and backroom plotting grows so prodigious and repetitive you practically have to keep it all written down in a notebook to keep it straight, if you even care about it at all. Blissfully, “The Witcher” remains watchable (witchable?) when it turns its camera back to our happy witching family.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
The Witcher is most engaging when exploring the alliances and allegiances between Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri and when using those three to consider Nivellen’s insistence that “Monsters are born of deeds alone. Unforgivable ones.” But in its attempt to build a bigger world, the series falls prey to more fantasy tropes than it masters.
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The IndependentDec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
For all that the acting and writing is frequently ropey – “You’d be married off to the nearest Lord of Bad Breath” and “They lick the boots of humans, the same boots that will eventually crush their necks” are two of the main offenders – it has the pleasantly self-effacing air of a show that knows its first season wasn’t a home run.
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Radio TimesDec 10, 2021
Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The Witcher also boasts richly expensive visuals and an expansive-seeming world, at least in its first five hours...What it lacks, though, is tonal consistency. This is a show with moments of drama and of gruesome violence cut through with a glancing humor that too often feels tossed-off and out-of-place in the world the show has created.
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The GuardianDec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
There are attempts at knowingness: at one point, our Henry tells someone a prophecy has to rhyme. This is not a good idea, as it throws into too sharp relief the limits to what Geralt and his merry band of sorceresses and proto-feminist princesses can be said to know. Play it straight, dear scriptwriters, or don’t play it at all. ... But again, if you like this sort of thing, go nuts.
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Dec 19, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It’s more of a Saturday-morning adventure than a Sunday-night prestige project. ... If it sounds like that could be fun, you’re right.
Jul 27, 2023
Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Two years after its debut The Witcher returns to Netflix, looking every bit as brawny as its maiden flight and less messy structurally. Although the series developed a solid following (unlike some of the streamer's other recent fantasy efforts that met the executioner's ax), the show remains uneven and somewhat impenetrable to anyone not truly invested in it, which isn't helped by the long layoff.
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The Daily BeastOct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
It’s so same-y that even recasting its main character barely registers after a couple of episodes, and its moments of true interest are few and far between. If you’ve made it this far, you could do worse than keep watching, but you may get the feeling you’ve seen it all before.
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SlashfilmOct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
"The Witcher" sets up some major book moments in the end, but the impact of these familiar stakes feels dull, like a weapon that hasn't been sharpened in ages. The potential inherent in Sapkowski's world is immense, but the Netflix adaptation squanders it with season 4, which is the weakest entry in the franchise so far.
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Jul 27, 2023
Season 3.5 Review:
Season 3 amounts to disappointment. As it subtly acknowledges the parting of star Henry Cavill while simultaneously attempting to hype its audience for the two Cavill-less seasons yet to come, The Witcher’s confused – and confusing – direction has never been more apparent.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Cavill remains fine as Geralt, with his absurd physique and long white hair. He has mastered the art of the humorous grunt and it’s still fun to watch him handily slaughter dozens of men at a time or take on some comic-book looking creature. But there was an audacity to this show’s first season that now seems buried beneath plot complications.
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Dec 16, 2021
Season 2 Review:
A lot of what made the series charming has been set aside. ... Overall, you probably know whether you’re the kind of viewer who’s willing to add another complicated Brothers Grimm-meets-Middle Earth saga to your schedule. And if you like your costumed fantasies mythology-forward and you find the mechanics of world building to be an end in themselves, then this new, more mysterious and portentous season of “The Witcher” may be for you.
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RogerEbert.comDec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
If you don’t take any of this more seriously than a holiday diversion, it has undeniable moments, and a fearless performance from its leading lady. But it’s safe to say that the throne of fantasy adulation on which HBO sits, even after the divisive final season, remains unchallenged.
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The GuardianOct 30, 2025
Season 4 Review:
The tone remains wildly uneven, lurching as it does between steeple-fingered Game of Thrones-y glumness and those early-90s Saturday afternoon series in which an uncommunicative hunk wanders between small communities, rescuing imperilled innocents from baddies while learning about the true meaning of friendship.
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The Daily BeastDec 10, 2021
Season 2 Review:
Drained of its bawdier and more comical ingredients (even Joey Batey’s bard Jaskier is relegated to a brief, and underwhelming, appearance), The Witcher plods along on its wayward course, piling on complications that, by and large, fail to consistently create the type of urgent stakes—or sense of import—that a large-scale endeavor such as this demands.
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Dec 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It takes a while for viewers to learn how these characters are connected, via an exasperating Westworld-esque narrative knot that takes much of the season to unfurl. ... The Witcher heightens our confusion by fumbling details that would have helped it set a cohesive tone. Dialogue vacillates, from line to line, between theatrical fantasy-speak and modern colloquialisms (“Dragons are, in fact, a thing!”).
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