The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: December 25, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
22
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 24, 2013
The story Stiller tells manages to float in a most peculiar, satisfying way. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonDec 24, 2013
Stiller balances his big ambitions with small, grounded truths. Read full review
80
EmpireOlly RichardsDec 23, 2013
As a director, this feels like Stiller’s moment. Mitty is a film that bravely rejects cynicism. In many ways, it’s the new Forrest Gump. Go with it and it is, in all senses, wonderful. Read full review
80
Total FilmPaul BradshawDec 23, 2013
Like most daydreams, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is funny, sad, weird and corny all at once – and you’ll probably only remember the good bits as soon as it’s finished. But it’s still a lot better than real life. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 28, 2013
In his uniquely funny and unexpectedly tender movie, Stiller takes us on a personal journey of lingering resonance. Read full review
75
Boston GlobePeter KeoughDec 25, 2013
The quest ends in a surprise Capra-esque resolution, which both satisfies and cloys. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaDec 24, 2013
The momentum Stiller has built up - his character's globe-trotting derring-do, the care and consideration on display in his directing - carries the movie a long way. Falling short of fantastic, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is still a fantasy to enjoy. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 24, 2013
Shirley MacLaine pops up as Walter’s ever-forgiving mother, and Wigg kills in an elevating sequence in which she sings David Bowie’s Space Oddity at a karaoke bar. Penn only gets one scene, but it’s a great one, and it reminds you how funny of an actor he can be. Read full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreDec 23, 2013
It’s a charming, whimsical and ever-so-slight film, a bit of an over-reach but pleasant enough, even when it falls short. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissDec 25, 2013
Mitty is a lovely romantic comedy — the portrait of a man, nearly swallowed by the gulf between the world his lives in and the world he dreams of, who manages to bridge the two and to find Ms. Right in the workplace he cherishes. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 24, 2013
Stiller's sensibility creates a movie that's smarter than you think it will be. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyDec 24, 2013
In the end, Walter Mitty is a film about acting out our dreams. But Stiller never quite shows us the soul of his dreamer. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 24, 2013
The most enjoyable parts of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty are his fantasies, such as one in which he stands up to his boss in a way he never would in real life. Read full review
60
The GuardianTom ShoneDec 22, 2013
It's too airless, too perfect, a dream of connection with humanity that flees contact with actual people. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyDec 22, 2013
Audiences willing to tune in to its blend of surreal fantasy, droll comedy and poignancy will be rewarded. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonDave CalhounDec 17, 2013
Cloying at times – but always good-natured. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeOct 6, 2013
Rather than channeling James Thurber’s satirical tone, Stiller plays it mostly earnest, spinning what feels like a feature-length “Just Do It” ad. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergDec 24, 2013
Abandoning its more original elements, the movie opts for a banal carpe diem conceit that turns Mitty into a globetrotting bystander. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 5, 2014
Exquisitely produced, immaculately acted, and thoroughly uninvolving, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a perfect nothing of a movie. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 28, 2013
Impressive landscapes, plus Kristen Wiig's appealing Cheryl, the fellow worker who inflames Walter's passion, make the movie enjoyable enough. Yet its style is a constant bafflement. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyDec 25, 2013
Let me be frank: to use the words of the august founder of this website, I hated, hated, hated this movie. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc MohanDec 24, 2013
The movie is beautifully shot, and some of the scenes have a real exuberance, but it's also a blatantly manipulative piece of smarm. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 24, 2013
The film has a persistent and careful sheen. It looks good. It is, in fact, preoccupied with looking good. If this sounds like faint praise, I'm afraid it is. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 24, 2013
The unevenness of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Stiller’s recessive characterization of the title character, keep it from being an all-out crowd-pleaser. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 24, 2013
Though it is a celebration of modesty, there is also quite a lot of vanity in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 24, 2013
This is an ambitious and sometimes effective but wildly uneven adventure that plays like one extended ego trip for Stiller. It feels like a movie by focus group, struggling to find a place between genuinely creative fantasy and audience-pleasing payoff moments. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 23, 2013
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty just doesn’t work. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 23, 2013
By trying to combine fantasy and romance with goofy humor, globe-trotting adventure and feel-good inspiration, Stiller has made Mitty a mixed bag of clashing tones and facile redemption. Read full review
50
The DissolveKeith PhippsDec 23, 2013
The triumphs feel engineered, and the realizations overheated. Seldom has a globe-spanning, soul-plumbing search for what really matters looked so inconsequential. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesDec 18, 2013
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a very pretty production – pretty colors, pretty scenery, pretty bromides – and a busy one, too, which helps distract us from the sad fact that the movie is generous and humane but not all that interesting. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 16, 2013
The result may be the oddest film of the season. It boasts an array of sublime backdrops and a yearning score, but the climate of feeling is anxious and inward, encapsulated in Stiller’s darting gaze, and the movie itself keeps glancing backward, at the lost and the obsolete. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnOct 6, 2013
Shows none of the edgy storytelling looniness present in Stiller's finest work. Instead, every element seems calculated to service an easygoing commercial product that plays up the sentimentality of the scenario while rendering it inoffensively bland. Read full review
48
Film.comDavid EhrlichOct 6, 2013
Palpably well-intentioned, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is nevertheless phony to the core. Read full review
42
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezOct 5, 2013
Part escapist action-adventure, part would-be exhilarating quest of self-discovery, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty isn’t so much a mess because it wants to be everything at once, but because it employs hackneyed and mawkish methods to achieve a false sense of joyfulness. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfDec 25, 2013
You’re going to find it all either enormously empowering or deeply calculated: an Arcade Fire–scored TV commercial for instant spirituality. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereDec 25, 2013
A run-of-the-mill movie hero. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithDec 19, 2013
The story of a guy who never goes anywhere or does anything. Until he goes everywhere and does everything, but he might as well have stayed home. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineNick SchagerOct 6, 2013
Ben Stiller's aesthetics blend overly manicured imagery with soaring rock songs that underline every emotion, lest the film's corporate logo-driven message-making didn't get the point across clearly enough. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 25, 2013
If, while watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, you start wondering why Ben Stiller is acting strange, the answer comes during the closing credits: "Directed by Ben Stiller." Read full review
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