This is perhaps Burton’s most soulful film besides Edward Scissorhands, a lovely fable weaved with tall tales and a grand heart.

| Sep 5, 2024

That melancholy mutes much of it so as the film goes to an idyllic town, a bank robbery, dances, and a circus, it never actually turns into something like Batman Returns or Beetlejuice

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 4, 2024

Tim Burton's lone outstanding, heartfelt film of the last two decades may not seem like a natural fit with his horror-tinged oeuvre. But in some ways it's his most intimate, personal movie.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 20, 2021

The sentiment behind the plot is sweet and endearing and the movie is an excellent example of Burton, the master filmmaker, at work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2021

This is a film with heart. From beginning to end. A heartwarming tale about love and family, a father and a son, and that sometimes it's very hard to separate fact from fiction....but then sometimes, it doesn't really matter; does it.

| Nov 7, 2019

[Director Tim Burton] manages to balance his whimsy and his visual aesthetics in ways that aren't overwhelming to the story and... are pleasing to me.

| Jun 27, 2019

If you want an offbeat, funny, touching movie then Big Fish is for you

| Original Score: 8.5/10 | Dec 21, 2018

There's a covert tyranny in the strived-for moral behind this film which evidently sees itself as a worthy ode to the redeeming value of storytelling and the shaman art.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 24, 2018

When it catches fire, this great-looking movie offers hilarious diversions. And as father and son struggle toward a hard-won reconciliation, Big Fish reveals its beating heart.

| Mar 12, 2018

Big Fish has a hook, a line, but it's a sinker.

| Feb 1, 2018

Big Fish really belongs to Albert Finney, who proves that when it comes to large performances there is no one who can quite match a British Shakespearean with good camera sense.

| Jan 9, 2018

the father-and-son story to beat all father-and-son stories

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 12, 2016

Delightful, sad father-son story for teens and up.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 22, 2010

Reliant more on powerful familial emotions than wacky splendor, "Big Fish" treads as close to our real world as Tim Burton ever could - a melancholy dissection of paternal distance and never truly knowing how many lives those we love can truly affect.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 25, 2010

Burton, favoring form over content, flavor over fact, has been often criticized for not knowing how to bring his work to satisfactory resolution. But I'd call that a good thing. Blame it on his dad.

| Aug 21, 2009

Burton invokes the imagination from his crowd and succeeds in making us gasp in wonder.

| Apr 29, 2009

Never has going fishing or getting caught been such a treat.

| Oct 18, 2008

For all the story's twists, there are no real surprises (the ending is obvious 10 minutes in), and Burton's flourishes of self-satisfied frippery annoy as much as they amuse.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Unfortunately, up until the end, the tall tales are far more interesting than reality.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 27, 2007

I enjoyed "Big Fish" more than any film Burton has been involved with since maybe "Nightmare Before Christmas."

| Original Score: A | Jul 23, 2007