American Animals
Ascot Elite Entertainment Group | Release Date: June 1, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 5, 2018
I was utterly absorbed in this teeth-clenchingly exciting story and the “heist” sequence itself stands up really well – as well as anything I’ve seen. Read full review
100
Total FilmMatt GlasbySep 3, 2018
Running from entertaining to tense as hell, Layton’s docu-drama heist flick grapples with something that most capers can’t even begin to compute: consequences. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesJ.R. KinnardJun 7, 2018
Heavy subtext aside, American Animals remains a slick, smart heist film that entertains from start to finish. Read full review
100
VarietyGuy Lodge
This is unabashedly virtuoso, show-off filmmaking, as cocky as the misguided young men at the film’s center, who, at least for a period, saw their lives as a Hollywood romp in itself. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthy
Both as a writer and director, Layton delivers the dramatic goods here with the skill of a pro at the top of his game while adding the rueful perspective of time's reassessment of youthful indiscretions; this has to rate among the most accomplished and fully realized big-screen debuts of recent times. Read full review
90
Screen DailyFionnuala Halligan
American Animals requires many cuts and perspectives which are second-nature to an accomplished documentarian, yet the drama here also seems effortless and seamlessly integrated. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 25, 2018
American Animals is a tense, taut sober and occasionally silly thriller that reminds us that the Caribbean Island at the end of the Hollywood heist is always a mirage. Read full review
83
ConsequenceAllison ShoemakerJun 2, 2018
Vivid is a good word at large, here. There’s a freshness and energy to American Animals. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMay 24, 2018
A movie seemingly custom-made for the era of alternative facts, American Animals feels like a new kind of true-crime thriller: one that shamelessly rewrites its truths in real time as it goes. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeSep 8, 2018
A heart-pounding heist movie and a bantering conversation between real life and fiction, the debut drama by documentary director Bart Layton (The Imposter) is a great deal sharper – and more slickly executed – than the lunkheaded criminal debacle on which it is based. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 6, 2018
It’s really the style and performances, more than the pseudo-experimental structure Layton has chosen, that keep the film grabby. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 7, 2018
Thanks to Layton's filmmaking choices, American Animals ends up being not so much a crime movie as an examination of truth and memory, as well as blame and responsibility. And it's a lot better for it. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMay 31, 2018
American Animals is not like other criminal stories and the differences make it one of the summer's freshest, most entertaining films. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleJun 13, 2018
American Animals is as much an exercise in objective truth – or the lack thereof – as it is the retelling of a single series of events. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJun 7, 2018
American Animals, while an entertaining version of a heist film at times, is no “Ocean’s 8.” Its signature moment occurs not during the reenactment of the inept crime, or its planning and antic aftermath. Rather, it comes in the middle of one of Lipka’s interview scenes. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshJun 7, 2018
Tangling reality and fiction into one impossible knot is at the core of this story, and the form follows that function. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJun 7, 2018
I’ve never seen anything like it, and I would have found it persuasive had I not read the 2007 Vanity Fair article based on interviews with the young men in prison. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTom RussoJun 6, 2018
The drama palpably, potently conveys the group’s misgivings, their jangling nerves, the foolhardy resignation pushing them on despite themselves. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedJun 5, 2018
It’s not the predictable plot that holds interest, but the unusual smart-aleck script by British writer-director Bart Layton that blends elements of the true story with an almost journalistic approach. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 31, 2018
American Animals is a high-style caper that touches a deeper chord of youthful indiscretion and moral imbalance. You won't be able to stop talking about it. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartMay 30, 2018
American Animals takes an appropriately wild approach to its subject, biting off a little more than it can chew, but nevertheless coming up with a truly novel entry in the overcrowded heist genre. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd
For all its mode-bending gamesmanship, American Animals is ultimately a fairly straightforward heist movie, albeit a stylish and engaging one. Read full review
75
The Film StageDaniel Schindel
American Animals is a legitimately exciting, funny, suspenseful, and at one point deeply upsetting crime film, ably demonstrating a command of genre trappings in service of a narrative about people warped by those very clichés. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneMay 31, 2018
The film, which kicks off in a flurry of visual tricks and narrative switchbacks, grows plainer in the later stages, and its concluding mood is surprisingly sad; these kids, who yearned to be something special, turned out to be anything but. Read full review
70
TheWrapRobert AbeleMay 31, 2018
The news is, sadly, all too consumed still with crime story post-mortems about “good kids” who screw up, but at least American Animals wants to leave you wondering about how we tell stories, and whose we tell, rather than simply satisfied you saw one told well. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJun 21, 2018
When Keoghan and Peters are onscreen, their performances are compelling enough, as is most of Layton’s narrative script – adding in the doc footage feels less revolutionary, and more like easy filler. It’s enough to feel, well, a bit robbed. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonMay 29, 2018
As he showed in "The Imposter," writer-director Bart Layton knows how to spin a compelling yarn. Read full review
60
IGNWitney SeiboldMay 31, 2018
Although featuring some good acting, and certainly ambitious in its critique of the characters, American Animals is too sleepy to strike a chord. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMay 30, 2018
Ultimately, you’re looking at four men struggling to explain an act of post-adolescent stupidity, accompanied by elaborate moving illustrations. It’s moderately entertaining, but the calories feel empty. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid Ehrlich
American Animals is fiercely entertaining from start to finish, even when its characters are acting so dumb that you start to suspect they still have some more evolving to do. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonMay 31, 2018
The robbery isn’t sophisticated enough on its own to hold one’s interest. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMay 31, 2018
The bigger problem is that stupidity just isn’t a very interesting subject. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleMay 31, 2018
American Animals would be a legitimate cautionary tale if it wasn’t invalidated by its own existence. Read full review
50
The PlaylistJordan Ruimy
All four actors are perfectly fine here, but the set-up is predictably conventional. Read full review
45
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsJun 5, 2018
Layton’s portentous style does the story no favors. It’s all mood, mood, mood: sharp angles, dark interiors, long pauses, and quietly thrumming background music. Read full review
45
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJun 1, 2018
Layton’s failure is frustrating. American Animals is a rare thing, truth that’s legitimately stranger than fiction. Bereft of a cohesive structure, the movie loses purpose, and that rare, strange truth is lost in workaday heist tropes blended with workaday documentary portraiture. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMay 30, 2018
The film, written and directed by Bart Layton, can’t quite decide what it wants to be: a slick, speedy caper; a goofball comedy; or a commentary on the state of the American soul. It’s none of those — a tame and toothless creature that is neither fish nor fowl. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlMay 30, 2018
Rather than plumb the apparent sociopathy that gripped these young men, Layton toys with unreliable narration and the vagaries of collective memory. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonJun 1, 2018
Would you enjoy a movie where Warren Buffet robs a bodega — and kicks the bodega cat for good measure? Because that’s what American Animals feels like. Read full review
25
The AtlanticDavid SimsJun 1, 2018
It’s a film that tosses questions at the viewer with no interest in answering them, one that can’t decide if it feels for its subjects or just wants to mock their incompetence. Read full review
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