Fifty Shades of Grey
Focus Features | Release Date: February 13, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
29
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 11, 2015
Great art it's not – but it's frisky, in charge of itself, and about as keenly felt a vision of this S&M power game we could realistically have expected to see. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartFeb 10, 2015
The film never pretends to be other than what it really is: soft-core porn for the ladies, diluted with an “R” rating. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenFeb 10, 2015
With a loose-limbed naturalness, she conveys naiveté, intellectual curiosity and romantic yearning, and shows the unassuming Ana’s newfound thrill at being seen, however complicated the man holding her in his admiring gaze. She’s open and vulnerable but no fool. Best of all, Johnson and her director embrace Ana’s paradox: She snickers at Christian’s predilections, but they also turn her on. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallFeb 12, 2015
Fifty Shades of Grey isn't the howling pornucopia it could be, but it's sexy enough, spank you very much. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumFeb 10, 2015
I spoil nothing by reporting what readers already know, that when Fifty Shades is not a dirty story, it is, as the trilogy unfolds, a study in cartoonishly weird family dynamics. Read full review
65
TheWrapInkoo KangFeb 10, 2015
Starring a vivacious Dakota Johnson and a game Jamie Dornan, Taylor-Johnson’s erotic romance is a skillful distillation of James’ first book that captures the heady exhilaration of being someone’s fixation. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMeredith GoldsteinFeb 12, 2015
The director of the much-anticipated adaptation, Sam Taylor-Johnson, made what could have been a trashy TV movie into well-conceived cinema. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie OgleFeb 12, 2015
Despite what you might fear, the movie is not torture. And even if it doesn’t inspire lust, you will breathe a warm sigh of relief, thinking: This could have been so much worse. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 12, 2015
The surprise, if there is a surprise here, is that the film has found a slyly humorous tone for much of the running time. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonFeb 10, 2015
The film strips Fifty Shades of Grey to its essentials: a confident man, an awkward girl, and a red room rimmed with leather handcuffs. From there, Taylor-Johnson rebuilds. She constructs an erotic dramedy that takes its romance seriously even as it admits that Christian Grey's very existence is absurd. Read full review
60
The GuardianJordan HoffmanFeb 10, 2015
Johnson’s Ana squeezes believability out of one of the more silly romantic entanglements in recent popular culture. It’s all there in her face, which Taylor-Johnson frames in close-up. She’s fully aware this scenario is ridiculous, but can’t seem to turn away from its lunacy. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangFeb 10, 2015
Glossy, well cast, and a consistent hoot until it becomes a serious drag, this neo-“9½ Weeks” is above all a slick exercise in carefully brand-managed titillation — edgier than most grown-up studio fare, but otherwise a fairly mild provocation in this porn-saturated day and age. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid EhrlichFeb 10, 2015
Fifty Shades of Grey is a sex-positive but hopelessly soft-core erotic drama that fails to be even a fraction as titillating as the E.L. James books that inspired it. And yet, that’s exactly why it works. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanFeb 10, 2015
Credit goes to director Sam Taylor-Johnson and her screenwriter, Kelly Marcel, who've stripped the first book of its biggest flaws, while still honoring its essence. And lead Dakota Johnson makes for an ideal heroine, though — as doubters feared — her chemistry with costar Jamie Dornan doesn't always sizzle. Read full review
58
HitfixDrew McWeenyFeb 11, 2015
It's a very slick film. But in the end, that slick becomes suffocating, and there's no real pulse here. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaFeb 18, 2015
There's real hypocrisy here. If a movie like Fifty Shades of Grey is supposed to offer a voyeuristic experience - and not a ridiculous experience - have some integrity about your nudity. Despite what the filmmakers may want to believe, there isn't a lot else going on here. Fifty Shades of Grey Matter, not so much. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaFeb 13, 2015
In the annals of sexually-charged event cinema, Fifty Shades of Grey barely lights a candle let alone combusts with unbridled forbidden passion. Read full review
50
SlateMeghan DaumFeb 12, 2015
Fifty Shades of Grey is a generic romance cynically engineered to appeal to the lowest common denominator of female fantasy. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Courtney SheaFeb 12, 2015
Much was made about how, with respectable director Sam Taylor-Johnson at the helm, Fifty Shades was going to be a legitimately good movie. It’s not, and it’s also not over-the-top enough to suggest future cult-classic status. What it is is a movie best saved for at home viewing, both because there is no compelling reason to see it on the big screen, and mostly because the pause, rewind and fast-forward controls are sure to come in handy. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissFeb 12, 2015
Sometimes intelligent, often cuddlesome and ultimately bland. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 12, 2015
It’s billionaire-glossy, as much an ode to consumerism as a study in sadomasochism; intermittingly titillating, with fugitive flashes of droll; and, bondage apart, a dutifully romantic tale of an old-fashioned girl who takes a particularly roundabout route to true love. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerryFeb 12, 2015
In the end, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before. But there’s also nothing as agonizingly awkward as James’s prose. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsFeb 12, 2015
The movie version of Fifty Shades is better than the book. It's still awful, but when a filmmaker starts with stupid source material, he's handcuffed. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeFeb 12, 2015
Leads Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, both of whom spend the majority of the film supposedly desperately longing for each other, have so little chemistry that it gives the sexy goings-on a rather clinical feel. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianJeff BakerFeb 12, 2015
The movie isn't a complete disaster -- it's got a strong performance at its core from Dakota Johnson, and it looks sleek and modern, like a Beyonce video or a Calvin Klein commercial -- but it's an unpleasant experience with a sleazy stench that sticks in a way that E.L. James' novel doesn't. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 12, 2015
The enormous, make-or-break things are perfectly in place, and just that is enough for a reasonably enjoyable movie. But plot problems, some comically weak dialogue, repetitious scenes and a non-ending ending keep the experience a little more earthbound than it had to be. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 12, 2015
Fifty Shades encourages us to buy into this credulity-straining scenario because the actors go well together (casting director Francine Maisler did the heavy lifting), Dornan's steely resolve facing off nicely against Johnson's engaging feistyness as each tries to make this cross-cultural relationship work on his or her own terms. Read full review
50
The DissolveTasha RobinsonFeb 12, 2015
Choosing to ignore any conventional sense of drama, progression, or resolution is, in its way, a memorable choice. But while Fifty Shades Of Grey is a memorable and society-shifting cultural event, it’s in no way a memorable movie. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFeb 11, 2015
Fifty Shades of Grey is nowhere near as laughable as you might have feared (or perversely hoped for): It’s elegantly made, and Dakota Johnson is so good at navigating the heroine’s emotional zigs and zags that you want to buy into the whole cobwebbed premise. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirFeb 11, 2015
I wouldn’t say that Taylor-Johnson has made a good movie from Fifty Shades of Grey, precisely. That’s asking too much. But she and Marcel have risen to the challenge of this bizarre cultural moment with an odd and memorable film. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedFeb 11, 2015
The entire movie is about as sexy as a root canal. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundFeb 11, 2015
Jamie Dornan somehow manages to render his sculpted beauty moot, which throws a major wrench in the gears for a film dependent on eroticism. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 12, 2015
Essentially a Harlequin Romance with pulleys, E.L. James’s novel is not exactly “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” but the movie, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and written by Kelly Marcel takes itself so seriously that it almost cries out to be lampooned. I’m sure the “Saturday Night Live” crew is already on the case. Read full review
42
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 10, 2015
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson from Kelly Marcel's screenplay, the considerable talent behind the camera and a modicum of considerable performances yield a few undeniable guilty pleasures, but most viewers will be seeking a safe word to escape this two-hour-plus mess of half-baked excess. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiFeb 18, 2015
It's a bondage movie without much perversion, a love story without much passion, and ultimately, a film burdened with expectations it could never fulfill. It never quite hits as hard as you want it to. Read full review
40
Total FilmMatt MaytumFeb 17, 2015
Dakota Johnson is a revelation in an adaptation that’s better than it should have been. But with the sex scenes and the drama lacking the required heat, it’s ultimately unsatisfying. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneFeb 17, 2015
And there you have the problem with this film. It is gray with good taste — shade upon shade of muted naughtiness, daubed within the limits of the R rating. Think of it as the “Downton Abbey” of bondage, designed neither to menace nor to offend but purely to cosset the fatigued imagination. You get dirtier talk in most action movies, and more genitalia in a TED talk on Renaissance sculpture. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 12, 2015
Yes, there are sex scenes in the film, quite a few. But for a movie where people are naked for a large chunk of time and play at bondage and dominance (without ever really seeming all that committed to it), it sure is boring. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 17, 2015
Who would have imagined that a movie about sex could be so boring? That's the bottom line when it comes to Fifty Shades of Grey. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 12, 2015
The long-awaited, highly anticipated, much-discussed film adaptation of the first segment of E L James’ inexplicably popular "Fifty Shades" trilogy is a tedious exercise in dramatic wheel-spinning that doesn’t have the courage to explore the darkest elements of the characters and doesn’t have the originality to stand on its own merits. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 11, 2015
Clinical as a classroom lecture, it’s a limp sadomasochism primer, which explains both the runaway success of the E.L. James novel and the startling pre-opening sales stats from America’s Promise Keepers belt. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. ScottFeb 11, 2015
Fifty Shades of Grey might not be a good movie — O.K., it’s a terrible movie — but it might nonetheless be a movie that feels good to see, whether you squirm or giggle or roll your eyes or just sit still and take your punishment. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 11, 2015
The true audiences for Fifty Shades of Grey are gluttons for punishment — by boredom. Read full review
25
USA TodayClaudia PuigFeb 10, 2015
Sitting through the turgid and tedious S&M melodrama that is Fifty Shades of Grey may feel like its own form of torture. Read full review
20
CineVueEd FranklFeb 11, 2015
While the first half has a brisk, upfront approach, the final hour is gobsmackingly dull - with emphasis on the smacking. Read full review
0
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezFeb 10, 2015
Ultimately, Fifty Shades Of Grey is embarrassing and depressing, especially when considering the picture as a reflection of the quality of mainstream modern romance today. Read full review
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