Midsommar holds a Metacritic score of 72 out of 100, based on reviews from 54 professional critics. This score places the film in the “generally favorable reviews” category, indicating that critics found significant merit in the film while acknowledging its limitations.
The score reflects a measured critical reception—not overwhelmingly praised, but respected as a film that achieves what it sets out to do, even if not every critic found it entirely successful.
- Metacritic Rating Midsommar: Table of Contents
- How Does Midsommar's Metacritic Score Compare to Similar Horror Films?
- Understanding What "Generally Favorable Reviews" Really Means for This Film
- What Critical Elements Drove the Score Up or Down?
- How Does Midsommar's Critical Score Compare to Its Audience Reception?
- What Limitations Does the Metacritic Score Reveal About Critical Assessment?
- How Individual Critic Perspectives Shaped the Overall Score
- The Lasting Impact of Midsommar's Critical Reception
- Conclusion
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Director Ari Aster’s 2019 folk horror film earned this middling-to-positive score largely due to its ambitious visual storytelling and commitment to creating an unsettling atmosphere in broad daylight.
Unlike many horror films that rely on darkness and shadows, Midsommar constructs its dread through a bright Swedish festival setting, which impressed critics who valued the creative approach. However, the film’s deliberate pacing and ambiguous emotional core divided reviewers on whether the experience was profound or self-indulgent.
Table of Contents
- How Does Midsommar’s Metacritic Score Compare to Similar Horror Films?
- Understanding What “Generally Favorable Reviews” Really Means for This Film
- What Critical Elements Drove the Score Up or Down?
- How Does Midsommar’s Critical Score Compare to Its Audience Reception?
- What Limitations Does the Metacritic Score Reveal About Critical Assessment?
- How Individual Critic Perspectives Shaped the Overall Score
- The Lasting Impact of Midsommar’s Critical Reception
- Conclusion
How Does Midsommar’s Metacritic Score Compare to Similar Horror Films?
The 72 score positions Midsommar favorably within the horror genre, though not as universally acclaimed as the highest-rated films in the category.
For context, recent horror films like hereditary (2018) also directed by Ari Aster scored 67 on Metacritic, while genre standouts like The Babadook achieved 80.
This means Midsommar actually surpassed Aster’s own previous effort in terms of critical consensus, despite both films sharing similar themes of grief and family trauma filtered through horror elements.
The score difference matters because it reflects critical attitudes toward film ambition. Midsommar received points for originality and technical execution, even from critics who found fault with its narrative or pacing. Many reviewers acknowledged the film’s craft—cinematography, production design, and sound design—while questioning whether the story justified its two-hour-and-27-minute runtime.
This pattern is common for prestige horror films that attempt to transcend genre conventions; critics recognize the effort and artistry even when they don’t fully endorse the final product.
Understanding What “Generally Favorable Reviews” Really Means for This Film
The metacritic designation of “generally favorable” indicates that more critics responded positively than negatively, but the gap is not enormous. On a scale where 100 represents universal acclaim and 0 represents universal dismissal, 72 represents solid professional respect without enthusiasm.
This matters because it suggests Midsommar appeals to specific audiences—particularly those interested in challenging, unusual horror—while leaving others cold.
A critical limitation to consider is that Metacritic aggregates opinions into a single number, which obscures the actual range of responses. One critic might call Midsommar “a masterpiece of atmospheric dread,” while another describes it as “beautiful but hollow,” and both responses contribute to the same aggregate score.
The 54 reviews included in the calculation came from various publications with different aesthetic values, so the 72 represents a compromise position rather than consensus agreement. For viewers deciding whether to watch the film, this means reading individual reviews remains more informative than relying on the number alone.
What Critical Elements Drove the Score Up or Down?
Critics who rated Midsommar favorably consistently praised its visual achievements and thematic ambition. Reviewers highlighted how cinematographer Pär Östergren transforms a daylit festival into something ominous and corrupting—a feat that requires more skill than creating horror in darkness.
The film’s commitment to showing graphic violence in bright, clear frames, rather than cutting away or obscuring it, struck many critics as a bold artistic choice that reinforced the narrative’s examination of how communities normalize brutality.
Conversely, critics who scored it lower typically objected to the film’s emotional distance from its characters. Where some found the detachment purposeful and unsettling, others felt it made the protagonist’s suffering feel like an intellectual exercise rather than something worth emotional investment.
The Metacritic score reflects this split: enough critics appreciated the formal aspects and thematic coherence to push the score above 70, but enough found the emotional coldness off-putting to prevent it from reaching the 80+ range where more universal appreciation typically resides.
How Does Midsommar’s Critical Score Compare to Its Audience Reception?
One practical distinction worth understanding is that Metacritic includes critic reviews, while user ratings tell a different story.
Many films with solid critic scores find much lower favor with general audiences, and Midsommar exemplifies this pattern. While critics appreciated the film’s artistic ambition and formal control, general audiences often found it punishingly slow and difficult to watch.
This discrepancy matters for deciding whether to watch: if you value critical consensus and artistic merit, the 72 suggests it’s worth your time.
If you prefer crowd-pleasing entertainment, the gap between critic and audience reception signals that you might not enjoy it. The tradeoff here is between accessibility and artistry. Midsommar asks viewers to sit with discomfort, uncertainty, and prolonged scenes of ritual behavior that don’t resolve in conventional narrative ways.
Critics appreciated this commitment to aesthetic vision; broader audiences often found it exhausting. Understanding this distinction prevents disappointment—knowing that critics respected the film’s choices helps explain why it received a 72 rather than failing to achieve wide approval.
What Limitations Does the Metacritic Score Reveal About Critical Assessment?
A key warning: Metacritic’s methodology favors certain types of films over others. Horror films in particular face scoring pressures because critics must balance respect for genre conventions against expectations for crossover appeal and thematic depth.
Midsommar likely benefited from being a “prestige horror” film—made by a respected indie director, shot on a substantial budget, played festival circuits—in ways that genre-focused horror films don’t. A similar film with a less prestigious pedigree might have scored lower for identical artistic choices.
Additionally, the 72 score was finalized years ago and doesn’t account for how critical discourse around the film has evolved. Since 2019, the film has gained appreciation in some circles and fallen out of favor in others, but the Metacritic score remains static.
This limitation means the numerical score should be treated as a historical snapshot of critic opinion at the film’s release, not as a current or evolving assessment. If you’re researching how critics initially received the film, the 72 is accurate.
If you’re trying to understand current critical sentiment, supplementary research into recent discussions and retrospectives would provide more nuance.
How Individual Critic Perspectives Shaped the Overall Score
The 54 reviews that contributed to the 72 score came from major publications, film festivals, and specialized criticism outlets, each with different review criteria and values. A mainstream entertainment critic and a festival-focused art cinema critic might watch the same film and reach very different conclusions.
For Midsommar specifically, critics at publications focused on horror appreciation tended to rate it higher, while mainstream film critics offered more mixed assessments.
This reflects reality: Midsommar is a film that rewards viewers who come to it understanding Aster’s intentions and appetite for unsettling imagery. A critic reviewing it as a straight horror film to be judged against franchise entries and conventional scares would likely rate it lower than a critic evaluating it as an arthouse horror experience.
The Metacritic aggregation smooths out these different perspectives into a single number, which is useful for broad comparison but obscures the reasoning behind individual assessments.
The Lasting Impact of Midsommar’s Critical Reception
Since its 2019 release, Midsommar’s 72 score has held up as a reasonable reflection of its position in film culture. It’s become the kind of film people either champion as a contemporary horror classic or dismiss as overwrought and unpleasant—polarizing opinions that the 72 captures well.
The score has not significantly changed because critic consensus, once established on Metacritic, remains relatively fixed unless substantial new reviews are added.
Looking forward, how Midsommar ages in critical estimation may well shift. Films that initially receive moderate scores sometimes gain appreciation as their thematic concerns become more culturally relevant, or lose favor as their techniques become commonplace.
For now, the 72 represents a fair historical record: critics recognized Midsommar as a seriously made, formally accomplished horror film that achieves its artistic goals even if those goals don’t align with conventional entertainment values.
Conclusion
Midsommar’s Metacritic score of 72 out of 100 represents professional critical respect for a film that successfully executes its ambitious vision, even if the vision itself proves challenging or off-putting to some viewers.
This is not a score suggesting universal acclaim, but rather a score indicating that critics appreciated the film’s craft, originality, and thematic commitment despite reservations about pacing, emotional distance, or genre conventions.
The score reflects what the film actually is: a carefully made, visually striking horror film that prioritizes atmosphere and formal control over narrative satisfaction or character identification.
For anyone considering whether to watch Midsommar, the 72 score should prompt research into what kind of film experience you value. If you appreciate challenging, unconventional horror that trusts viewers to sit with discomfort and visual unpleasantness, the critical support suggests it’s worth your time.
If you prefer films that create emotional connections or provide narrative catharsis, the moderate score combined with audience skepticism indicates this film likely won’t satisfy you. The Metacritic rating ultimately says more about critical appreciation of artistic ambition than about universal quality or entertainment value.
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