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Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Warner Bros.


7.0

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 139 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG for some scary images and action, and brief mild language

Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, and Christopher Lee

Set in a 19th century European village, this stop-motion, animated features follows the story of Victor (Depp), a young man who is whisked away to the underworld and wed to a mysterious Corpse Bride (Bonham-Carter), while his real bride waits bereft in the land of the living. (Warner Bros.)

GENRE(S):	Animation \| Comedy \| Fantasy
WRITTEN BY:	John August Pamela Pettler Caroline Thompson
DIRECTED BY:	Tim Burton Mike Johnson
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 31, 2006 Theatrical: September 16, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	78 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK

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

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A wondrous flight of fancy, a stop-motion-animated treat brimming with imaginative characters, evocative sets, sly humor, inspired songs and a genuine whimsy that seldom finds its way into today's movies.

100

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

But the real marvel is that beneath the ghoulish in-jokes and horror-geek allusions, there's a core of the same bittersweet truth that makes the best fairy tales resonate from one generation to the next.

100

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A lush, modern valentine to old-fashioned sentiment, and to old-fashioned moviemaking, too.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

One more good thing is that the movie doesn't overstay its welcome. At 76-minutes, it's wisely calculated to give us as much of its ghoulish whimsy as we can take in one sitting, and not a second more.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Like all Burton's best work, it takes place in a distorted, vividly colored, meticulously crafted world where whimsy and gleeful ghoulishness mix freely.

Slate David Edelstein

The movie is so Burtonesque that it verges on self-parody--but it's fun and stunningly beautiful anyway.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Not just great fun but high art.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This stop-action animated feature is downright sweet and tender, as well as all the other things we've come to expect from him -- funny, bizarre, graphically stunning and blithely necrophilic.

Variety Justin Chang

An endearingly schizoid Frankenstein of a movie, by turns relentlessly high-spirited and darkly poignant.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Corpse Bride never skimps on the sass (as a good folktale shouldn't). And the variety of its cadaverous style is never less than inspired; never has the human skull's natural grin been redeployed so exhaustively for yuks.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's warped and wonderfully effervescent. Ditto the songs by Danny Elfman, who sings the role of Bonejangles, the frontman for a skeleton jazz band at a swinging underworld club. Best of all is the love story.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Ghoulishness and innocence walk hand-in-hand in Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, a movie that digs into Hollywood's past to resurrect the antique art of stop-motion animation and create a fabulous bauble of a movie.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Features the season's most tragic heroine along with some of the liveliest dead people ever seen on film.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The story itself is a smooth little gem.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

An instant classic.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Will be hailed for its macabre imagination and inventive farce. But it also elegantly renders an archetypal teenage tale.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Burton, who directed the film with animator Mike Johnson, has rarely been in brisker, friskier form.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

If "Nightmare" was a jazzy pop number, "Bride" is a waltz--an elegant, deadly funny bit of macabre matrimony.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Corpse Bride had me at the maggot.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Easily the best stop-motion animated necrophiliac musical romantic comedy of all time. It is also just simply, wonderful: a morbid, merry tale of true love that dazzles the eyes and delights the soul.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Such a treat for the eyes, ears and funny bone that you feel cheated that it clocks in at less than an hour-and-a-quarter.

Empire Staff (Not credited)

A precious thing, if likely to please refined aesthetes and odd children rather than win over Pixar-sized crowds.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This may be light family entertainment, but it's also a pleasingly perverse celebration of Victorian morbidity.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

A visual triumph, and also a work of surprising warmth. No small accomplishment for a bunch of cadavers.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

There is something heartening about Mr. Burton's love for bones and rot here, if only because it suggests, despite some recent evidence, that he is not yet ready to abandon his own dark kingdom.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The dead have more fun than the living, again, in Tim Burton’s new stop-motion animated feature, a gift to gothlings everywhere and as exquisitely crafted as one of Federico’s post-mortem still lifes on "Six Feet Under," and just as melodramatically melancholic.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not the macabre horror story the title suggests, but a sweet and visually lovely tale of love lost.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Deliriously original.

Premiere Ryan Devlin

The Poe-esque story, the wonderfully twisted physical geometry of the characters, and the director’s signature sense of humor, combine to make Corpse Bride a fun movie, and one that breathes life not only into stop motion, but into animation as a whole.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

As animated films go, this is easily the best of a weak year.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As an achievement in macabre visual wizardry, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride has to be reckoned some sort of marvel.

Washington Post Teresa Wiltz

For all its charm, we can't quite figure out for whom the film is intended: Talking maggots and decaying bodies do not a kiddie movie make.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Populated by all kinds of grinning skeletons and decomposing zombies, but in Burton's universe, they aren't the slightest bit threatening. It's the drab, flesh-and-blood living you have to worry about.

LA Weekly Mark Olsen

There is much clattering and clanking plus a couple of songs; some of the gothic-inspired, neo-Victorian visuals are quite arresting; and the corpse bride herself is, dare one say, surprisingly hot. But the whole thing just isn’t much fun.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Corpse Bride has more warmth and appeal than its title would indicate, but it is finally more grotesque than good-humored. And, even at 75 minutes, it feels longer than its content can comfortably support.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 139 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
The best off all the stop-animation movies. Incredible. I had to watch it all week and I didn't get sick of it.

Amy C. gave it a10:
This is the best movie that i have even seen, in my option it is MUCH better than the nightmare before Christmas. i do not understand why people are judging the two movies they are totally different. sure they are Tim Burton's movies but still you don't see a skeleton trying to kidnap Christmas in the corpse bride and you don't see a man marrying a corpse in the nightmare before Christmas. overall I LOVE THIS MOVIE

Deanna H gave it an8:
A really good movie i like it a lot. I like Johnny Depp a lot!!!

Velour gave it a4:
This movie, like Burton's " Nightmare Before Christmas" has a familiar style, but the storyline doesn't intrigue me enough to watch 75 minutes. I found it to be less capturing than Nightmare. But, it is better than the title suggest's.

Claus V. gave it a10:
Stop-motion animation may be a dinosaur, but can still be technically superb. I didn't believe they used real puppets in this film. Very good plot and characters. Fell in love with the Corpse Bride -what a sweet, unselfconsciously erotic darling! I would happily die to marry her and play four-hand classic piano without a score for eternity!

Elizabeth C. gave it a10:
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are an awesome team.... I loved this movie!!!

Kevin H gave it a9:
It's no Nightmare Before Christmas, but a great movie regardless.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Warner Bros.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Warner Bros.