Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

34 10,000 B.C.
55 Baby Mama
62 Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
36 College Road Trip
xx Dark Knight, The
31 Deception
41 Drillbit Taylor
57 Forbidden Kingdom, The
67 Forgetting Sarah Marshall
54 Get Smart
49 Hancock
34 Happening, The
57 Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
xx Hellboy II: The Golden Army
71 Horton Hears a Who!
61 Incredible Hulk, The
65 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
79 Iron Man
35 Jumper
73 Kung Fu Panda
24 Love Guru, The
37 Made of Honor
xx Mamma Mia!
58 Mist, The
48 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
55 Nim's Island
22 Postal
69 Redbelt
44 Ruins, The
53 Sex and the City: The Movie
76 Shine a Light
37 Shutter
37 Speed Racer
61 Stop Loss
47 Strangers, The
55 Street Kings
33 Superhero Movie
93 WALL-E
64 Wanted
36 What Happens in Vegas...
54 You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

83 Alexandra
80 Band's Visit, The
76 Beauty in Trouble
47 Bella
80 Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
59 Blind Mountain
55 Bra Boys
60 Brick Lane
70 Caramel
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
83 Chop Shop
83 Chris & Don. A Love Story
78 Counterfeiters, The
52 Diminished Capacity
64 Dreams with Sharp Teeth
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
84 Edge of Heaven, The
52 Elsa & Fred
79 Encounters at the End of the World
62 Expired
64 Fall, The
51 Finding Amanda
57 Flawless
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63 Foot Fist Way, The
60 Fugitive Pieces
45 Full Grown Men
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69 Go-Getter, The
74 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
63 Gunnin for that #1 Spot
68 Heartbeat Detector
34 Holding Trevor
68 Honeydripper
55 Irina Palm
69 Jellyfish
60 Jihad for Love, A
68 Kabluey
62 Kiss the Bride
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
82 Last Mistress, The
38 Life Before Her Eyes, The
70 Love Songs
64 Married Life
30 Meet Bill
33 Miss Conception
53 Mister Lonely
74 Mongol
52 Mother of Tears, The
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
84 My Winnipeg
61 On the Rumba River
69 Operation Filmmaker
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
72 Priceless
51 Promotion, The
55 Quid Pro Quo
29 Red Roses and Petrol
79 Reprise
71 Roman de gare
56 Sangre de mi sangre
51 Savage Grace
76 Shotgun Stories
66 Son of Rambow
70 Standard Operating Procedure
62 Stuck
72 Surfwise
81 Tell No One
56 Then She Found Me
xx Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71 To the Limit
54 Tracey Fragments, The
70 Trumbo
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
56 Unknown Woman
86 Up the Yangtze
79 Visitor, The
62 Wackness, The
37 War, Inc.
64 Water Lilies
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
55 Without the King
72 Woman on the Beach
64 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Cloverfield
Paramount Pictures


5.8

based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 550 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for violence, terror and disturbing images

Starring Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, and T.J. Miller

Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives. (Paramount Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Sci-fi \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Drew Goddard
DIRECTED BY:	Matt Reeves
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: April 22, 2008 Theatrical: January 18, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	90 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Empire Olly Richards

A dazzling experiment that paid off immensely, this is cinematic pleasure at its purest. One caveat: If they ever make a sequel, we’re taking two stars back.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It puts human faces on the victims of mass destruction, faces that might easily have been yours or mine, staring down the maw of something we don't understand.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

We’ve never sat through anything with Cloverfield’s subjective sting. You’d have to be tougher than I was not to be blown sideways by it.

Village Voice Nathan Lee

Cloverfield never stops to identify the why, whence, or whereto of its rampaging meanie—this relentless thriller stops for nothing—but as for what to call it, behold . . . al-Qaedzilla!

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Cloverfield is the most intense and original creature feature I've seen in my adult moviegoing life, and that's coming from a guy who knows his Gojira from his Gamera and his Harryhausen from his Honda. Cloverfield isn't a horror film – it's a pure-blood, grade A, exultantly exhilarating monster movie.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's a sharp and vivid film, filled with moments of tremendous ingenuity and characterized by a persistent avoidance of the expected tropes. It's far scarier than the big-budget remakes of "Godzilla" and "King Kong," more engaging than "I Am Legend," more human than a sackful of slasher films.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Cloverfield, a surreptitiously subversive, stylistically clever little gem of an entertainment disguised, under its deadpan-neutral title, as a dumb Gen-YouTube monster movie, makes the convincingly chilling argument that the world will end -- or, at least, Manhattan will crumble -- with a bang and a whimper.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Cloverfield's gritty, in-your-face style is uncompromising. If you're looking for a nice, clean movie filmed with a steadycam, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It’s dumb but quick and dirty and effectively brusque, dispensing with niceties such as character.

Premiere Eric Alt

It's not the life-changing movie experience the intense viral marketing attention would lead you to think it is, but its decision to focus on ground-level humanism rather than epic disaster is what separates it from the pack.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Andy Spletzer

When the monster shows up, pretty early in the film, everything becomes much more interesting, as it smashes buildings in midtown Manhattan like some sort of Rudy Giuliani, 9/11 nightmare.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The genre may be old news, but the skillfully made Cloverfield offers a heart-racing experience with plenty of chills, thrills and exhilaration.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Manhattan has always been a fat target for apocalypse filmmakers, but with its 9/11-inspired imagery, Matt Reeves' breathlessly fast-paced Cloverfield is going to resonate with New York audiences in a way no other horror film has.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Cloverfield is an exercise in realism that lacks reality's broader and richer context. Or, put another way, the experiment is artful, but it ain't art.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Produced by "Lost" and "Alias" mastermind J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield has been one of the more interesting experiments in large-scale guerrilla filmmaking.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It's been a while since we've had a good monster movie, and while Cloverfield probably won't give you sleepless nights, it will certainly keep you awake in the theater.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Mercifully, at 84 minutes the movie is even shorter than its originally alleged 90-minute running time; how much visual shakiness can we take? And yet, all in all, it is an effective film, deploying its special effects well and never breaking the illusion that it is all happening as we see it.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Cloverfield is content to be a creature feature; that's what makes it bearable and what keeps it from greatness. The genre, not the script, does the psychological heavy lifting.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

There are a few surprises lurking in Cloverfield, and director Matt Reeves has an uncanny ability to time his jolts and scare when you least expect it.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

It’s a thoroughly intense and mostly entertaining movie.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Cloverfield is a vastly old-fashioned piece of work, creaking with hilarious contrivance. I was thrilled, for instance, to hear someone actually speak the line “It’s alive!”

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Think "Godzilla Unplugged" -- with chillingly effective results.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The narrative conceit requires a fair amount of indulgence as the story progresses, but the fleeting, incomplete glimpses of the monster early on prove the old dictum of B movie auteur Val Lewton that a momentary image can have greater impact than a prolonged one.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Long on style and technique, short on substance and plot.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Much scampering, yelling, quaking and crying is required of the actors, and they acquit themselves well enough, even with oozing fake wounds and prop rebars piercing their shoulder blades.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Now that the fanboy hype has cleared, we can see Cloverfield for what it is: borrowed inspiration, trite screenwriting and amateurish acting all in the service of a ballsy idea -- that a horror movie could maybe, just maybe, have a soul.

Slate Dana Stevens

Despite a first reel entirely devoted to establishing characters, Cloverfield is basically a line-'em-up, pick-'em-off horror movie that's effective without being either viscerally frightening or emotionally moving. Watching it is like going through a car wash: You come out of it thoroughly Cloverfield-ized, but essentially unchanged.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

An efficient but shallow fright show.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Combines unpleasantness and stupidity to a degree that would be difficult to match unless you were stuck in bed with a case of the shingles while being forced to watch “The Ghost Whisperer."

Variety Todd McCarthy

Despite its indie-flavored shooting style, first-rate visual effects, reasonable intensity factor, nihilistic attitude and post-9/11 anxiety overlay, this punchy sci-fier is, in the end, not much different from all the marauding creature features that have come before it.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

While the entertainment value of Cloverfield is highly negotiable, it's clear that Abrams has consciously aligned himself with those filmmakers who have used the template of a grade-B monster/invasion movie -- Don Siegel, George Romero, Steven Spielberg -- as a stealth vessel for social commentary.

Time Richard Corliss

Mind you, I don't begrudge the creators of even a junk-food movie like Cloverfield the fun they had demolishing New York one more time.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Adept at wringing maximum suspense and might have reached the heights of the Korean monster film "The Host" but for the limitations of the camcorder ploy. While it injects the film with a run-and-gun urgency, the device grows tiresome and ultimately leaves the film shortchanged.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

No movie this year will better embody Macbeth's description of life itself: "a tale ... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Washington Post John Anderson

Cloverfield is a relentless, I-thought-my-eyeballs-were-bleeding exercise in visual disorientation.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Like too many big-studio productions, Cloverfield works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt. Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It pretends to examine how self-absorbed we are as a culture, only to be consumed by its own self-absorption. It's also badly constructed, humorless and emotionally sadistic .

The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 550 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dan M gave it a0:
By watching this movie, I just wasted 2 hours of my life.... Someone please tell me why Matt Reeves gets paid this much to make a movie that not only dissapoints, but really honestly, has no true storyline ? I could some up with a better storyline, and actually put a part in about what the creature was ! Seriously this movie is not something I would have even promoted, because the movie its self is not even finished.

Dylan B. gave it a10:
a great film, the many logical problems that many people find could easily be attributed to fear and anzxiety, you would not think clearly if something like this happened, and (******SPOLIER*****) the hellicopter was'nt too far off the ground and spun out of control, it didn't crash directly into the ground, also, and the impaled girl was able to move due to adrenalin, she had been impaled for atlest a couple of hours and, if she had too, could have ignored the pain and kept moving.

Matt B. gave it a0:
This movie was a great disappointment in fact i'd go as far as saying its one of the worst movies i've ever seen right up their with Carla, and dark harvest. The camera angles were Godzilla meets Blair witch the sequel. The movie lacks an actual true storyline and instead replaces it with cgi and no actual point. The movie doesnt have an end and it seems as though abrams got half way through the movie and then learned he got the startreck movie so he just figured he'd throw this movie to the dogs.

James Bond gave it a1:
This movie should be in the stupid section. I just wasted my money renting it

D R. gave it a10:
amazing. different, but firmly hollywood. polarized votes tell you something. at its best it felt like jacking into someone's nightmare vs. watching a movie.

Tiago M. gave it a4:
The idea is look realistic, very realistic. But the action and the caracters are unreal. Very unreal.

Dalton gave it a2:
Clever idea - too bad the bouncing camera kept me at that point to where I was just about to barf the whole time. That, and, like the other characters in the movie, I really wanted the guy with the camera to shut up.

Cloverfield Paramount Pictures

Cloverfield
Paramount Pictures