A skin-prickling, unnerving viewing experience, Parker Finn’s first feature is an astonishing demonstration of film-making restraint.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 18, 2024

It's not the most original film of recent years... [but] it uses a familiar box of tricks rather well.

| Jan 3, 2024

Finn uses the strength of his conceit to turn the screws, raising tension through the Ring-like timeline Rose faces and the sheer relentlessness of her supernatural tormentor.

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

If you want something that will make you jump out of your seat, this is very effective, but for me the story just didn't come together.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 3, 2022

It could have been the kind of sinister flick that follows you home, slipping through the door, up the stairs, and curling up deep inside your head, daring you to sleep. Instead, Smile feels as disposable as a candy wrapper.

| Oct 9, 2022

Alas, Smile starts to feel as if it were written by an inept committee...

| Oct 7, 2022

Catnip for teens venturing out to the multiplex with friends on a Friday night.

| Oct 7, 2022

Turn up your nose, if you must, at the lowly cheap sting of a jump scare. Smile gives that maligned device a workout for the ages. It rattles with aplomb.

| Oct 4, 2022

As opaque and somewhat silly as the smiles that drive it.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 3, 2022

The combination of a committed central performance from the increasingly gaunt and haunted Bacon, and a jarring, tortured score, makes for an enjoyably nasty brush with the smiling face of evil.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 3, 2022

a finely tuned if derivative cross-country dash for catharsis, ultimately leading back to the remote, dilapidated seat of [protagonist] Rose’s trauma

| Oct 3, 2022

The most significant hallmark of Smile isn’t necessarily about the horrors of trauma but what happens when you’re brave enough to address it and things still go wrong.

| Oct 2, 2022

Though it may be derivative, Smile still manages to be a scary, unsettling ride that’s powered by an impressively committed Sosie Bacon performance and some assured direction. Finn is one to watch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 2, 2022

Smile is trauma porn.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 2, 2022

There's more mature attention paid to severe emotional trauma than in your standard horror tale, but "Smile" ultimately overstays its welcome...

| Original Score: B- | Sep 30, 2022

There are some nice jump scares and Bacon is charismatic but it’s achingly derivative and dull.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 30, 2022

It’s to the movie’s credit that it doesn’t overplay its hand -- or rather, its killer kisser -- while still milking the unnerving sight for all its worth.

| Sep 30, 2022

It often feels like we’re one whole act ahead of everybody, and that can lead to tedium. More important, the real disappointment comes in the way that the film discards its visual principles...

| Sep 30, 2022

Smile is a pretty silly movie by any metric; still, it has teeth.

| Original Score: B | Sep 30, 2022

There are highlights scattered throughout... but there are stretches that will make you antsy for reasons other than a potential scare.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2022