The X Files
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: June 19, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
12
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Dark, funny, paranoid, arbitrary, humming with tamped-down eroticism and in love with all things weird: That's the good news. Read full review
80
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Like the TV show, The X-Files movie is stylish, scary, sardonically funny and at times just plain gross. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
As pure movie, The X-Files more or less works. As a story, it needs a sequel, a prequel, and Cliff Notes. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Offers two hours of solid entertainment. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
Neither true believers nor newcomers to the phenomenon will be disappointed. Read full review
75
San Francisco ExaminerTim Goodman
In the movie, the truth will (and does) out itself. Mulder and Scully have seen the future and it's a giant leap for each of them to comprehend. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
This is more than enough material for two hours of summer-movie fun, and The X-Files delivers said fun reasonably well. The action scenes are bigger and bolder than their small-screen counterparts. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
It's a smart, exciting, involving film that's true to its source, which is all it really needs to be. Read full review
70
The New York TimesElvis Mitchell
Though both stars are sometimes eclipsed when the film strains for big action episodes, Mr. Duchovny sustains enough cool, deadpan intellect and suppressed passion to give the story a center. Ms. Armstrong has the harsher, more restrictive role, but she plays it with familiar hardboiled glamour. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
It's the brilliance of The X-Files to have turned Mulder's paranoid style into a function of cool. Mulder and Scully aren't just beautiful, smart, well-armed and seemingly impervious to the banalities of everyday life, such as cheap haircuts and ruinous love affairs--they're cool. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Solid, workmanlike stuff, and enough to keep the legions of X-philes sated until next September. And since I realize some of you are dying to know, no, Mulder's butt remains, as always, fully clothed. Read full review
60
Washington PostRita Kempley
The X-Files movie is really just a two-hour teaser for the series's sixth season. And little else. You will feel exactly like Mulder when he says, "How many times have we been right here before, Scully? So close to the truth?" Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
With its shrewd mixture of paranoia and the paranormal, the way its elaborate mythology combines enigmatic phenomena with potent cabals intent on running the world, The X-Files experience resembles "Twin Peaks" crossed with "The Twilight Zone." Read full review
60
SlateDavid Edelstein
The X-Files isn't so much a bad movie as it is a crackerjack piece of television. It's crisply made--not sodden like many of the "Star Trek" pictures. But it's as annoyingly open-ended as the rest of the series' episodes. Read full review
60
EmpireNeil Jeffries
The X-Files can stand proud as a genuine movie with a beginning, a middle and an end, two charismatic leads and a franchise ahead of it. Read full review
60
Film ThreatRon Wells
The problem is, the main conspiracy of the show is so vast, you have to walk around it a couple of times before you can see what it is. Read full review
50
The New YorkerBruce Diones
Ultimately disappointing--it's bigger budgeted, but somehow less engrossing when played outside the solitary intimacy of the tube. It'll be a great video flick. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Falls somewhere in between standing on its own feet as a real movie worth the price of a ticket and merely being a glorified TV episode refitted for theaters. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
What we have here is a pretty good TV show huffed and puffed into a rather mediocre film. Read full review
50
SalonJoyce Millman
It's a two-hour episode of the show, except with better production values and a nicer wardrobe for Scully. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Truth is, it' not very good.
50
USA TodayDennis Moore
I entered the screening for The X-Files: Fight the Future with myriad questions... I left with disappointing answers. [19 June 1998, p. 7E]
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Essentially a supersize episode that ignores a slew of fifth-season developments and adds yet another monster to the mix, one that owes a striking debt to "Alien." Read full review
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