Gremlins
Reception

Gremlins (1984)

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External reception

7.3
5 platform(s) · 7 ratings 288,042 votes
7.1/10 4,069 votes Synced 2026-07-27
7.3/10 276,655 votes Synced 2026-08-20
Audience 7.2/10 171 votes Synced 2026-07-21
Critics 7.0/10 Synced 2026-07-21
Audience 7.8/10 Synced 2026-07-21
Critics 8.6/10 Synced 2026-07-21
7.1/10 7,147 votes Synced 2026-09-17

External reviews

David Sterritt · Christian Science Monitor 91.00/100.00

In many ways, though, Gremlins is ingenious. Gizmo yanks at your heartstrings with both furry fists, then sits out a few scenes while suspense builds, then plunges back with more vim than ever. The small-town setting, right out of a gushy Frank Capra movie, manages to be timeless, nostalgic, and slightly ridiculous all at once.

synced 2026-07-21
Richard Corliss · Time 80.00/100.00

Gremlins has enough style and savvy to stand on its own as the summer's most original Hollywood picture.

synced 2026-07-21
Robbie Collin · The Telegraph 80.00/100.00

A welcome reissue of the 1984 creature feature in which a Capra-esque idyll is besieged by ravening beasties.

synced 2026-07-21
Roger Ebert · Chicago Sun-Times 75.00/100.00

Gremlins was hailed as another "E.T." It's not. It's in a different tradition. At the level of Serious Film Criticism, it's a meditation on the myths in our movies: Christmas, families, monsters, retail stores, movies, boogeymen. At the level of Pop Movie-going, it's a sophisticated, witty B movie, in which the monsters are devouring not only the defenseless town, but decades of defenseless clichés. But don't go if you still believe in Santa Claus.

synced 2026-07-21
Vincent Canby · The New York Times 50.00/100.00

Gremlins is far more interested in showing off its knowledge of movie lore and making random jokes than in providing consistent entertainment. Unfortunately, it's funniest when being most nasty.

synced 2026-07-21
Caroline Westbrook · Empire 100.00/100.00

A delightfully offbeat reminder of how inventive and witty blockbusters seemed when you were a kid.

synced 2026-07-21
Tom Huddleston · Time Out London 80.00/100.00

A jangling, lunatic sugar rush of a movie, in love with everything it satirises and bursting at the seams with psychotic energy

synced 2026-07-21
Jonathan Rosenbaum · Chicago Reader 70.00/100.00

What's confusing yet ultimately illuminating is the way his gremlins function as a free-floating metaphor, suggesting at separate junctures everything from teenagers to blacks to various Freudian suppressions.

synced 2026-07-21

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