Though it really shouldn't be at this point in time, it's exhilarating to see a film centered on teenage girls... Yet to champion the film as a universal reflection of teenage girldom rather than a highly specific fantasy also does it a disservice.

| Mar 13, 2021

With elegant clarity, Booksmart demonstrates how certain experiences can feel colossal and of walloping import even when we know we're waiting for something else-something we can't possibly fathom.

| Mar 12, 2021

...witty, raucous, perfectly played and eventually packs an emotional wallop.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 16, 2019

It's raunchy and kind of gross at times, but there is such heart, sweetness, and honesty about high school.

| Sep 30, 2019

It sounds like such a cliche but you will literally laugh and cry, and flash back to your own teenage days with fondness, not horror.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 6, 2019

First, the good news: it's immediately clear that Wilde is a filmmaker by vocation... If anything, the film is polished to a fault: the marketing term "elevated genre," most frequently applied to horror, feels equally apt here.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 12, 2019

Booksmart is such a smart, funny, rude, cheerful, likeable movie. It's well worth checking out, even if your school days are a distant memory.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 8, 2019

It's more John Hughes than Judd Apatow, and it's a little more Bridesmaids than Lady Bird...a success on [its] own terms...

| Jun 7, 2019

Forgive me if I'm bored by this... Politics somewhat aside, the comedy teens need today certainly isn't a fairy tale about a good-natured struggle to the top.

| Jun 5, 2019

As good as Feldstein and Dever are as a pair... Booksmart really soars when our heroines reach their destination and, separately, get to spread their wings.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 1, 2019

Sequences throughout the movie that over-rely on music betray the great performances...but go out and see this movie, I want to see what Olivia Wilde does next.

| Original Score: B | May 31, 2019

I want to see so many more Booksmarts, all Booksmarts down the line. An incredibly confident directorial debut.

| May 31, 2019

Confidently assured, snappy and hilarious, Booksmart is destined to become a classic.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 29, 2019

The film is peppered with jokes-some highly clever, some merely raunchy, as the genre demands-but it also has a beating heart.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 28, 2019

Booksmart puts a fresh spin on the coming-of-age night-of comedy because it's focused on two girls, one of whom is also queer.

| May 28, 2019

They're colorful and funny, and believably written and played (these characters are types for a reason). Most importantly, the writers complicate the types, giving them unexpected complexities and sympathetic elements.

| May 27, 2019

Booksmart is not short on outrageous larks and inappropriate remarks. It is, however, that sense of discovery that sets it apart.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 26, 2019

A solid debut for Wilde, but really puts Dever and Feldstein on the map.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 26, 2019

Dever and Feldstein sell the pair's charged, codependent dynamic, the former exuding a quiet confidence as the straight man to the latter's bossy, brassy, overcompensating comedian.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 25, 2019

Booksmart is a love letter for any young woman who has ever stayed home on a Friday night to watch a Ken Burns documentary.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 24, 2019