It's a frightening film, but more than that it's a drama. More than that it's a tragedy.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 10, 2021

In addition to Lynch's breakout performance, Alex Wolff is riveting as Backderf.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 17, 2020

While maybe not as subtle as it could've been, does offer a indisputably curious account of the young man that came before the monster,

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2020

This film has been sold as providing the untold story behind Jeffrey Dahmer, but there's very little in the movie that is a surprise in any way.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 14, 2020

This superficial treatment of an American tragedy may pass as a condemnation of superficial American culture, but the opportunity to make a film as rivetingly creepy-compassionate as the comic has been blown.

| Jun 3, 2020

It's a restrained and humane portrait of a killer and the community that raised him.

| Feb 7, 2020

Emphasizes a very human sense of loneliness in Jeff, but it doesn't explore the sadistic element of domination with which his desire for companionship was entwined.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 20, 2019

Marc Meyers does a fantastic job directing Backderf's intimate account of Jeffery Dahmer early years. His film can be viewed as both a sympathetic look at a troubled youth or a documentation of a prolific murderer...

| May 16, 2019

My Friend Dahmer presents not only an examination of Dahmer himself, it gets into the ethics of Backderf's friendship with the soon-to-be cannibal murderer.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 1, 2019

We eagerly disappear inside a perfectly decorated 1970's living room in order to catch a glimpse of this slow moving train as it inevitably derails.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 10, 2019

A complex and absorbing portrait of a teenager just about to take the leap into infamy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 12, 2019

My Friend Dahmer excels by going beyond a simple examination of Jeff Dahmer. Meyers' script doesn't excuse or condone Jeff's behaviour, but it doesn't shy away from the broader social circumstances that contributed to his isolation and despair

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2019

Lynch's fellow Disney alum Zac Efron is set to play Ted Bundy in the upcoming drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile... It's anyone's guess as to whether or not that movie will spin as intricate, alluring and unique a web as Meyers's film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 27, 2018

What's impressive is despite the film's huge subtextual residue (Dahmer's future serial killer status), Meyers still wraps it all up in a cogent dramatic and visual framework.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 16, 2018

Affording such sophistication to such potentially sleazy material gives "My Friend Dahmer" the best of both worlds, resulting in a captivating and thoughtful meditation on the making of a killer.

| Oct 22, 2018

A period-perfect ode to dysfunction in plain sight.

| Sep 26, 2018

My Friend Dahmer thinks it's disturbing, but mistakes weird looks for psychological tension.

| Aug 29, 2018

My Friend Dahmer is far more interesting than it is engaging; a slow-paced examination of a young man on the edge of something sinister.

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

Although My Friend Dahmer does not resolve the impossible question of 'nature vs nurture', it approaches it with a humanity that is too often missing from such stories.

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

The movie is best as a study of teenage enthusiasm and exploitation, charting his association with a trio of anarchic classmates - including John Backderf (Alex Wolff), whose graphic novel is the film's source text - who stoke his antisocial stunts.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 15, 2018