Director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard effectively tap into that decade’s post-9/11 anxieties.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 15, 2023

Remains one of the better entrees in the early-aughts found-footage boom (15th anniversary)

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 10, 2023

Fifteen years after Cloverfield‘s release, the terrorizing monster movie remains one of the best examples of studio ingenuity, taking a worn-out genre and infusing it with something hyper-relevant and truly unpredictable.

| Jan 25, 2023

A fun and well-made return to the monster movie genre...

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

It has a monster that terrifies, it moves at a fast pace, it creates characters I liked and cared about

| Jul 6, 2021

Cloverfield is quite a stunning, fresh use of the found footage concept which cleverly updates the Godzilla-concept.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 16, 2021

Predictably, the monster itself is one of the film's only weaknesses.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 28, 2020

This is J.J. Abrams, the eye-catching bow of an all-in-one gift. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 2, 2020

Most effective because Reeves creates it with a slice of life feeling that perfectly blends moments of courage, stupidity, selfishness, hopelessness, and outright humor.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 5, 2020

This is a fun little frightfest bound to please those that have been captivated by the film's six-month viral campaign as well as people just looking to find that rare January release that actually entertains.

| Original Score: B | Nov 15, 2019

A new movie monster legend is born.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 6, 2019

A 21st century Godzilla movie for the (pre-video phone) camcorder generation

| Nov 11, 2018

Cloverfield is tiresome, dumb and horrid, and just in case you didn't get that I'll say it again: this film is tiresome, dumb and horrid. Don't go.

| Aug 23, 2018

Imagine Godzilla barging in on The Blair Witch Project, and totally trashing the joint.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 21, 2018

The special effects are outstanding and the story is a throwback to the days when audiences were given only glimpses of the monster. Sometimes what you can't see or have difficulty seeing is much scarier than something in plain view.

| Original Score: B+ | Feb 21, 2018

not so much a reinvention of the marauding-monster movie as it is a riff on its possibilities-a fascinating and largely successful experiment in the manipulation of cinematic perspective

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 5, 2018

Consistently gripping, Cloverfield is a significant accomplishment, and as I mentioned, it takes the Blair Witch approach to new and strikingly original levels.

| Jan 2, 2018

What a frustrating mess of possibilities and failed opportunities "Cloverfield" is! It is a monster-attacks-city movie at heart, and an incompetent one at that, but, oh, what it could have been.

| Nov 16, 2017

The characters are fleshed out participants in the mayhem, not merely disposable vessels designed to stand in all the right places when buildings come crashing down.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 18, 2016

Cloverfield should be best appreciated for throwing down the gauntlet for a new cinematic representation of mass destruction and, thus, the way we see ourselves seeing our worst fears.

| Sep 30, 2014