Corpse Bride
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: September 16, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
83
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Hollywood ReporterKirk 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. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineMaitland 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. Read full review
100
SalonStephanie Zacharek
A lush, modern valentine to old-fashioned sentiment, and to old-fashioned moviemaking, too. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam 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. Read full review
90
VarietyJustin Chang
An endearingly schizoid Frankenstein of a movie, by turns relentlessly high-spirited and darkly poignant. Read full review
90
Village VoiceMichael 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. Read full review
90
The A.V. ClubTasha 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. Read full review
90
SlateDavid Edelstein
The movie is so Burtonesque that it verges on self-parody--but it's fun and stunningly beautiful anyway. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe 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.
90
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
Not just great fun but high art. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter 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. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Features the season's most tragic heroine along with some of the liveliest dead people ever seen on film. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The story itself is a smooth little gem. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
An instant classic. Read full review
88
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. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Corpse Bride had me at the maggot. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven 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. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Will be hailed for its macabre imagination and inventive farce. But it also elegantly renders an archetypal teenage tale. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Burton, who directed the film with animator Mike Johnson, has rarely been in brisker, friskier form. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneRobert K. Elder
If "Nightmare" was a jazzy pop number, "Bride" is a waltz--an elegant, deadly funny bit of macabre matrimony. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn 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. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla 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. Read full review
80
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
A visual triumph, and also a work of surprising warmth. No small accomplishment for a bunch of cadavers. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This may be light family entertainment, but it's also a pleasingly perverse celebration of Victorian morbidity. Read full review
80
EmpireStaff (Not credited)
A precious thing, if likely to please refined aesthetes and odd children rather than win over Pixar-sized crowds. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc 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. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
As animated films go, this is easily the best of a weak year. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
As an achievement in macabre visual wizardry, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride has to be reckoned some sort of marvel. Read full review
75
PremiereRyan 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. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Not the macabre horror story the title suggests, but a sweet and visually lovely tale of love lost. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Deliriously original. Read full review
70
Washington PostTeresa 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. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene 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. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyMark 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. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth 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. Read full review
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