Bad Santa: Critic Reviews

80%

MovieWeb: 3 reviews

77%

RottenTomatoes: 188 reviews

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Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly (Top Critic)

17

Rancid, one-note.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Elvis Mitchell New York Times (Top Critic)

80

Takes all the Christmas season's bad vibes and converts them into an achingly funny and corrupt dark comedy.
Full Review » 9 years ago
USA Today (Top Critic)

88

It's such an original that it could eventually become the No. 1 cult movie of 2003.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Stephen Hunter Washington Post (Top Critic)

The movie is -- how can I say this? -- funny as hell.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Desson Thomson Washington Post (Top Critic)

Thornton, with his one-of-a-kind drawl, his lazy gaze, restless shaggy eyebrows and misanthropic attitude, seems to be the movie's essential X-factor.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Ty Burr Boston Globe (Top Critic)

63

Mac and Graham have little to do, sadly, but this may be the bravest acting Thornton has ever done, so complete is his refusal to play to our sympathies.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Dennis Lim Village Voice (Top Critic)

As toilet-mouthed, puke-encrusted, and liver-damaged as it may be, the movie's a traditional Scrooge story at heart.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Jack Mathews New York Daily News (Top Critic)

75

Thornton and Cox are wickedly funny, and Bernie Mac has some good moments as the cynical mall detective on their trail.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Bruce Westbrook Houston Chronicle (Top Critic)

92

Like The Ref, the best previous film in this vein, Bad Santa redeems itself with rounds of riotous outrageousness.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Chris Vognar Dallas Morning News (Top Critic)

67

If you think you can shake your head and mutter, 'That's just wrong,' as you laugh your lungs out, or if you're sick of artificial yuletide treacle, then step right up for a bit of holiday distemper.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Lisa Kennedy Denver Post (Top Critic)

38

There are laughs along the way. But too many of them are the sort that send you out into the cold worrying for your own humanity.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Peter Rainer New York Magazine (Top Critic)

Bad Santa is my kind of Christmas movie -- profane, subversive, and swarming with scuzzballs.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times (Top Critic)

88

I didn't like this movie merely because it was weird and different; I liked it because it makes no compromises and takes no prisoners. And because it is funny.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Mark Caro Chicago Tribune (Top Critic)

88

The foulest holiday movie I've ever seen -- and the funniest.
Full Review » 9 years ago
J. R. Jones Chicago Reader (Top Critic)

Zwigoff and company wring some laughs out of it, though the tone is uniformly mean and vulgar.
Full Review » 4 years ago
Steven Rea Philadelphia Inquirer (Top Critic)

50

There simply aren't enough laughs in this Christmas comedy -- it's more like a stocking stuffed with lumps of coal.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Jeff Strickler Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top Critic)

75

A must-see movie for the Scrooges of the world.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Tom Long Detroit News (Top Critic)

75

Just plain hilarious, a dark comedy triumph that beats on your typical holiday movie with a baseball bat.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Bill Muller Arizona Republic (Top Critic)

80

The movie actually has a heart -- a coal-black heart, but a heart nonetheless -- and it's bitingly funny.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Andrew Sarris New York Observer (Top Critic)

The funniest send-up of bad Christmas karma I have ever seen.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Dennis Harvey Variety (Top Critic)

First-rate talent and a uniquely dyspeptic mood separate this effort from more routine, populist stabs at tasteless yukkage.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Lou Lumenick New York Post (Top Critic)

50

For all its laughs, the movie ... is a mess.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Jay Boyar Orlando Sentinel (Top Critic)

60

The cast is resourceful enough to keep the film at least watchable throughout.
Full Review » 9 years ago
Peter Howell Toronto Star (Top Critic)

40

It rides a one-trick reindeer that tires well before the second reel, and it mistakes crudity and cruelty for humour.
Full Review » 8 years ago
Rick Groen Globe and Mail (Top Critic)

50

What's meant to be a live-action South Park just winds up in a scatological dead end.
Full Review » 8 years ago