The Dead Don't Die
Focus Features | Release Date: June 14, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 52 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
24
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)John SemleyJun 13, 2019
For its slightness and silliness, its concerns are grander. Here, the undead ghouls represent nothing but the cold prospect of death itself. “This isn’t gonna end well,” Driver’s omniscient copper keeps intoning. And it never does. Read full review
83
Original-CinKaren GordonJun 13, 2019
The obvious thing to call this film is a social satire. The humour is dry, pointed and often very, very funny. But Jarmusch is too clever and too careful a filmmaker to simply toss off a genre film for a few laughs. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellJul 26, 2019
A Jarmusch joint through and through, The Dead Don’t Die is as charming, affected and perplexing as we’ve come to expect from the long-time darling of US indie cinema. Read full review
80
Film ThreatLorry KiktaJun 17, 2019
I recommend this film more for fans of Jarmusch than for hardcore fans of the zombie genre. Although I hope that it does serve as an introduction to Jarmusch to people who haven’t seen his other films. Hopefully, most audiences can take away the message from the movie and don’t get too thrown off by the jokes or the star power involved. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 14, 2019
This is a winningly eccentric film, as attuned in its own way to the rhythms of ordinary life as Jarmusch and Driver’s (even better) 2016 feature Paterson. But there is a pessimism gnawing away in its gut that can’t be laughed off. Read full review
78
IGNRosie KnightMay 16, 2019
In the end this is arguably Jarmusch's first popcorn movie and it's a pretty good one at that. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJun 14, 2019
The Dead Don't Die is far from Jarmusch's best, but there's something to be said for its zonked-out acceptance of extinction. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJun 13, 2019
When The Dead Don’t Die sputters, you fear that Jarmusch’s political angst may have paralyzed him. But then there is the bleak, sardonic beauty of the climactic scene. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJun 13, 2019
Jarmusch, in his droll way, both celebrates and subverts the familiar elements of the genre. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 13, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die is delivered in one long, deadpan note. Some of the sight gags and quips are gold; others are just filler, but still kind of interesting in a wacky sort of way. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 12, 2019
This isn’t Jarmusch at his best but it’s more accessible than some of his films and doesn’t demand more from an audience than to sit back and be amused. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshJun 13, 2019
The Dead Don't Die is a bit too arch and remote to fully enjoy as a transportative or emotional piece of entertainment, but for Jarmusch fans and zombie fans, it's a fun little exercise in witnessing the auteur graft his unique sensibility onto the beloved genre. Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonMay 21, 2019
The movie is gentle, almost sluggish, and takes some weird left turns — in other words, it’s a Jarmusch film. Zombies suddenly turn up. People are dying. The world is ending. And by now, we’re more or less expecting it. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 14, 2019
The film’s scattershot humour doesn’t always land, but even when it does it’s merely masking what is ultimately a gloomy portrait of our walking-dead existence. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 14, 2019
It’s a minor, but most edible, bloody bonbon. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 15, 2019
It’s a film that lazily whistles past the graveyard as it brings that graveyard back to ravenous life. Read full review
67
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerJun 12, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die is a zombie movie of an odd stripe, and for all its blatant synthesizing of influences, it never shakes off the impression that it’s working out exactly what it wants to be as it goes along. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 14, 2019
If Jarmusch’s latest often feels as though it lacks a pulse, this star-studded parable is held together by one consistent truth: When Hell is full, the dead will walk the Earth. And when the Earth is fucked, the living will do whatever they can to sleepwalk through the nightmare. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckJun 13, 2019
While it’s a nice way to spend just short of two hours, it seems he could have sucked a little more out of those dusty old graves. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartJun 13, 2019
Even with a cast this lovable, The Dead Don’t Die falls short of the killer zom-com it could have been. Read full review
60
EmpireJohn NugentJul 9, 2019
It’s a lesser Jarmusch, yes — but it’s still a Jarmusch. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 13, 2019
This is an end-of-the-world party with an appealing guest list and inviting, eccentric décor. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 12, 2019
An amusingly meta B-movie send-up that -- largely thanks to its deadpan sensibilities -- manages to offer an entertaining riff on the zombie comedy, even if it doesn't particularly contribute anything ground-breaking to it. Read full review
60
TheWrapBen CrollMay 15, 2019
Take your seat and bask in the presence of the coolest characters actors working today, but don’t ask for more than a few chuckles. Don’t call it fan service – call it coolness oblige. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 15, 2019
For all its inspired moments, this is a movie content to coast on the charms of its terrific cast of comedic actors. Welcome to Night of the Living Deadpan. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 14, 2019
Jim Jarmusch’s undeadpan comedy is laconic, lugubrious and does not entirely come to life, despite many witty lines and tremendously assured performances by an A-list cast. Read full review
59
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJun 13, 2019
The movie doesn’t drag, but it’s a major drag all the same. Read full review
58
The Film StageLeonardo GoiMay 17, 2019
A ride that offers plenty of chuckle-inducing moments, but ultimately stalls in a swamp of meta-textual references and cinematic detritus. Read full review
55
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 24, 2019
By its muddled and probably intentionally frustrating conclusion, I’d lost the thread of Jarmusch’s argument (or arguments). The movie ends with the sting of unrealized potential, Jarmusch flippantly kicking at fertile terrain and then shuffling off. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeJan 3, 2020
Sure, the cast is full of exciting names, but all of Jarmusch’s absurdist thematic flourishes—the Romero tributes, the meta commentary, the political humor—are half-baked and inconsistently applied. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 17, 2019
(It) feels like a pale facsimile of Jarmusch. There are a few lovely, random laughs and a resonant political subtext, but the tone is off. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 13, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die isn’t bad, exactly. It’s just that with all this talent and all this beautiful weirdness at hand, it could have been so much better. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJun 12, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die feels like something of a minor comic note in the director’s curriculum vitae, but it’s not without its pleasures. And like Romero’s genre classic, social commentary, satirical and otherwise, abounds. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineSam C. MacMay 16, 2019
In Jim Jarmusch’s film, what starts as a subtle undercurrent of knowing humor curdles into overt self-referentiality. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 15, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die is better when it’s riffing on zombie heritage, or just being silly. But it’s best when Jarmusch is acknowledging, in that characteristically Jarmuschian way—half resigned, half jubilant — that the world of people, even with all their terrible flaws, is worth preserving Read full review
50
The PlaylistBradley WarrenMay 15, 2019
As a film, it shuffles around, shouting out the one thing it’s desperate for: ‘Purpose!’ Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMay 15, 2019
You can share Jarmusch’s despair — I certainly do — and still find its expression here too tired, bloodless and self-satisfied by half. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 15, 2019
The film feels like a creative resignation, too, meeting the end of the world with a shrug of tepid postmodern shtick. It puts despair itself in quotation marks. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 14, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die fancies itself a cutting-edge macabre comedy, but the truth is that it’s behind the curve of pop culture. That’s why it’s a disappointing trifle. Read full review
45
The AtlanticDavid SimsJun 14, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die is the first horror film I’ve seen that seemed as likely to lull me to sleep as to give me nightmares. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJul 15, 2019
The performances are so deadpan (or undeadpan perhaps) that most of the cast seem to be flatlining even before the zombies start chewing chunks out of their faces. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 17, 2019
The killings pile up, yet Jarmusch, the master of mellowdrama, would rather die than be accused of overkill. His heart isn’t really in the blood and guts. The line between the laid-back and the listless, in The Dead Don’t Die, may be too fine even for him, and most of the running gags don’t run at all, merely loping around in a circle. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 12, 2019
It’s painful to report that Jarmusch’s deadpan is in the rigor mortis stage in The Dead Don’t Die. His own creative ferment isn’t happening this time — the acid cynicism has killed the yeast — and the actors seem unsure whether to commit to the material when their director plainly hasn’t. Read full review
40
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 15, 2019
Jarmusch has opted for a stumbling dead so indulgently pleased with itself that it resembles little more than a precocious home movie filled with familiar faced pals all of whom find the joke funnier than any audience will. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 20, 2019
The problem with Dead Don’t Die is that it just doesn’t play. Jarmusch’s style doesn’t fit the material at feature film length. The long double-takes and slow-burn reactions, in this context, don’t delight, tickle or amuse. Read full review
38
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 15, 2019
Indeed, it's hard to figure out why this film was even made, beyond the fact that it could be made, that there was a loose idea and talented people willing to join in the fun. It's neither serious nor funny enough, and it adds nothing to Jarmusch's reputation. If anything, it might hurt it retroactively. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJun 13, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die isn’t just deadpan — it’s dead. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 12, 2019
Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die may not be a gifted filmmaker’s worst movie, but it’s certainly his most cynical — a unique cinematic worldview reduced to schtick. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 11, 2019
The absurdism wears gratingly thin in The Dead Don’t Die, whose deadpan tone gives way to tiresome, grindingly repetitive inertia. Read full review
30
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoJun 4, 2019
The Dead Don't Die is a procedurally bland zomcom with little genre personality, playing as if Jarmusch invents a subgenre horror fans haven't been watching for decades. Read full review
16
UproxxVince ManciniJun 13, 2019
I can’t think of many less valuable experiences than sitting through some bored rich guy’s extended series of inside jokes and half-baked complaints about smartphones. Read full review
0
ObserverRex ReedJun 14, 2019
Avoid it at all costs if you value your sanity. Read full review
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