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Finding Nemo
Metascore
89 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 37 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 36 out of 37
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 37
  3. Negative: 0 out of 37
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  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    100
    An exhilarating fish story in the perfectly cast comic adventure.
  2. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    This time the dad is the hero of the story, although in most animation it is almost always the mother.
  3. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Mark Caro
    100
    Finding Nemo and its Pixar predecessors tap into the shared gene among the kids and adults that delights in imagination-engaging, eye-tickling and wit-filled storytelling. You connect to these sea creatures as you rarely do with humans in big-screen adventures. The result: a true sunken treasure.
  4. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    100
    It's the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat their tale's darker subtexts that makes Finding Nemo such a resounding piece of storytelling.
  5. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    100
    Summer hasn't even started, but you won't likely find a better catch this season than Finding Nemo, a dazzling, computer-animated fish tale with a funny, touching script and wonderful voice performances that make it an unqualified treat for all ages.
  6. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: C.W. Nevius
    100
    The visuals pop, the fish emote and the ocean comes alive. That's in the first two minutes. After that, they do some really cool stuff.
  7. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    100
    I don't think we're going to see a better--a funnier or more genuinely heartwarming, for that matter--comedy this year.
  8. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    100
    The movie's generosity of spirit and artistry swamps its flaws.
  9. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    100
    Pixar's employees, masters of computer-generated animation, capture the look of the ocean like no artists before.
  10. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    100
    You could trawl the seven seas and not net a funnier, more beautiful, and more original work of art and comedy than Finding Nemo.
  11. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    100
    It has what the most heartfelt Disney animated features used to have: rapturous imagery matched with real wit.
  12. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
    100
    On a purely visual level, Finding Nemo is as gorgeous a film as Disney's ever put out, with astonishing qualities of light, movement, surface and color at the service of the best professional imaginations money can buy.
  13. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    100
    The great joy of watching a Pixar production is how it rewards not only younger viewers but their older companions as well.
  14. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    90
    The humor bubbling through Finding Nemo is so fresh, sure of itself and devoid of the cutesy, saccharine condescension that drips through so many family comedies that you have to wonder what it is about the Pixar technology that inspires the creators to be so endlessly inventive.
  15. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    90
    Of all the great vocal characterizations...the showstopper is Brooks, who hasn't had a part this good since "Lost in America" (1985). His Marlin is tender, cranky, hysterical, yet somehow lucid.
  16. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    90
    Nemo, with its ravishing underwater fantasia, manages to trump the design glamour of earlier Pixar films.
  17. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    90
    An undersea treasure all the same, and a prodigy of visual energy.
    All this critic's reviews
  18. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    90
    May be a fish tale, but its story of the paradox of love -- knowing when to hold on means knowing when to let go -- is profoundly humane and human.
  19. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Andrew Stanton
    90
    Aquatic joyride.
  20. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    89
    Pixar's Finding Nemo may well have the best casting of any animated film of the past 30-odd years.
  21. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    88
    Leave it to a g-rated cartoon to give the live-action epics a lesson in action, fun and bracing originality.
  22. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    88
    This stirring children's movie about separation anxiety is swimming with comic references only adults will catch, thus greatly expanding the potential audience.
  23. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    88
    The most gorgeous of all the Pixar films — which include "Toy Story" 1 and 2, "A Bug's Life" and "Monsters, Inc." —Nemo treats family audiences to a sweet, resonant story and breathtaking visuals.
  24. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    88
    Pixar is so good at what it does that every other kiddie-entertainment purveyor -- including parent company Disney -- flounders in comparison.
  25. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    88
    As always, the voice casting is perfect. Throw in a moral, and some nice touches of technical accuracy (that fish keepers will appreciate), and the movie represents the best family film to-date of 2003.
  26. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Ray Conlogue
    88
    Though the Disney logo is on this movie, there is -- possibly excepting little Nemo himself -- not a single cloying, sentimental Disneyesque creature in it. There is, instead, wit and flair in concept and writing, the trademark of the Pixar people who drove the project.
  27. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    83
    Dazzles us with computer-generated animation that has never looked quite so boldly exotic or shimmeringly beautiful.
  28. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    80
    What's more impressive, and in the end more important, is the high standard of storytelling that Pixar continues to meet by locating both humor and emotional depth in worlds created out of lines of code.
  29. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ed Park
    80
    Stuffed to the gills with surprises.
  30. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Bill Gallo
    80
    The whole thing is absolutely beautiful to look at, even when it has a bad case of the cutes.
  31. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    80
    The best break of all is that Pixar's traditionally untethered imagination can't be kept under wraps forever, and "Nemo" erupts with sea creatures that showcase Stanton and company's gift for character and peerless eye for skewering contemporary culture.
  32. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    80
    Very clever and imaginative indeed, and its pictures are so gorgeous that they alone could warrant a second viewing.
  33. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    Though not as great as "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters, Inc.," Pixar movies that are the gold standard for family movies, Finding Nemo is visually entrancing.
  34. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Angel Cohn
    70
    The colorful and kid-friendly characters are a delight, though very young children might be alarmed by some of the larger creatures, who tend to come into view teeth first.
  35. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    70
    It's all beautiful, all right. But before long I began to feel beaten against the rocks of that beauty -- Finding Nemo smacks of looky-what-I-can-do virtuosity, and after the first 10 minutes or so, it's exhausting.
  36. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    70
    Finding Nemo is, as it happens, the most dangerously sugared of the Pixar productions to date--how could any father-finding-son saga be otherwise?--but the threat is now one of oversophistication. [9 June 2003, p. 108]
    All this critic's reviews
  37. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Kevin Carr
    50
    After four Pixar features under their belts, it is painfully easy to see the clichés emerging.
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User Reviews

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User Score
8.6 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 386 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 188 out of 207
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 207
  3. Negative: 11 out of 207
  1. Neo010390
    10
    Now this is the kind of breathtaking adventure that keeps me entertained all the way. Distributed by Disney and Pixar, Director Andrew Stanton has produced an incredible movie about the underwater sea life. It tells the story of a Clown fish called Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks), who is very protective over his son Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould) after the loss of his family. Nemo grows increasingly tired of his Dad worrying all the time that on his first day of school, he disobeys his father and swims up to touch a speed boat. He then gets captured by a scuba diver. Marlin swims after him, but is too late and he quickly sets off on his speed boat. Marlin, swimming as fast as he can, soon bumps into a royal blue tang fish called Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), who suffers from short term memory loss. The two then decide to work together and try and rescue Nemo (which from this point on is like going through this difficult quest - being chased by a shark, tackling jellyfish and swallowed by a whale) before it is too late. What I liked most about this movie was the jaw binding special effects. The CGI of the underwater oceans surroundings are breathtaking, and the designs of the fishes are nicely done, although a bit fake in the eyes I would say (don't recall there being fish eyes the size of a grapefruit). Of course the film wouldn't be as good without any good comedy performances from voice acting, and Finding Nemo managed to conquer that. All the actors/actresses played a good voice part, but I have to give full credit to Ellen DeGeneres. Her performance as Dory is absolutely brilliant, honestly she really plays the character so well and will provide audiences from 5 to 50 with great laughter, especially the one where she is trying to speak whale. I actually don't think they could have found another person to better Dory. What I like most about Pixar films is that they try to capture the audience to imagine what the character (whether it's a toy, an insect or a fish) inside is feeling, and what your reactions would be if you were the character. As well as joy and laughter, there's a real heart to this film. Finding Nemo is a truly epic masterpiece, filled with action/adventure and characters and emotions.… Full Review »
  2. heyitsmegrif4
    10
    Finding Nemo is definitely one of Pixar's greatest creations because it is charming, beautifully animated and hilarious mostly because of Ellen Degeneres's hilarious and unforgettable performance. To help this movie succeed even more it is emotional and heartwarming. I give this film 99%.… Full Review »
  3. grandpajoe6191
    9
    Pixar illustrates the super dad in their masterpiece "Nemo". They don't use guns or super skills like "Death Sentence" or "Taken", but with colorful visuals and deep characters that actually maneuver the movie. You did it again, Pixar!!!… Full Review »
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