The live-action How to Train Your Dragon is a soaring reimagining that pays heartfelt tribute to its animated predecessor while blazing a vibrant new trail.

Full Review | Jul 30, 2025

This How To Train Your Dragon adaptation blew the original out of Berk’s waters, providing streamlined storytelling with awesome cinematography and CGI/VFX work to back it up.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jul 28, 2025

If the original still delivers so well, why not just revisit that instead? That said, seeing this world brought to life in live-action does bring some of its own appeal, particularly for those discovering it for the first time.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 27, 2025

Dean DeBlois has somehow recreated an incredible film about dragons and the struggle to survive and turned it into this lifeless, carbon-copy shell of its former self. This is a film aimed to enhance the studio’s pockets and nothing more.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 26, 2025

The new 'How to Train Your Dragon' is a business experiment, an attempt to chase a cash cow without ever realizing said attempt negates anything that made the source material special in the first place.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Jul 24, 2025

Most live-action adaptations lack the awe-inspired glint of their predecessors. With How to Train Your Dragon, however, it’s every bit as soulful and magical as the original and takes Hiccup and Toothless’ first flight to all new heights.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 23, 2025

It might be a lateral move at most—How to Train Your Dragon is already excellent—but the live-action version at least justifies its existence with the beauty and thrill of the flight sequences and more fleshed out characters.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

The only good thing I can really say about 2025's How to Train Your Dragon is that it made me want to immediately go home and watch the original. Do yourself a favor, save yourself twenty dollars and rent the original at home.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 21, 2025

Because the original was really good, it’s not too hard to believe that a copy, made by the people who gave the first one so much care and attention, could get it right — or mostly right — a second time.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2025

If we must have “live-action” remakes for the sake of crass capitalism, let them be more like this.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2025

For all the diversity and the beauty of the locations, every scene was so painfully similar, down to the musical beats, the camera angles, and the dialogue delivery, that I ached for something new.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2025

This new “How to Train Your Dragon” feels muted and half-hearted.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2025

The actors do their parts well and blend in as either anxious adults or growing-up-too-fast teenagers.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 14, 2025

How to Train Your Dragon is the best live-action remake of an animated movie ever. Point, blank, period.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 14, 2025

It compensates a colossal lack of originality with a strong cast and execution to deliver a soaring cinematic experience. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 11, 2025

In the beginning, Butler feels like he is playing a character with his accent and overall presentation. But he settles in & feels more like the father and leader of these warriors. How to Train Your Dragon is fun, funny, fantastical, & forward-thinking.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2025

While the live-action version might lack some of the artful and comic expressionism better suited to the animated medium, it makes up for it by being very immersive and visceral.

Full Review | Jul 10, 2025

If you’re not familiar with the original, I’m sure How To Train Your Dragon will offer you a lot, but for those familiar with the superior version, this live-action remake simply can’t recreate its magic.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 9, 2025

How to Train Your Dragon doesn’t reach the heights of the original film, but with a sequel already on the horizon, one can hope that they take their own path, one not already traveled in animated form.

Full Review | Jul 8, 2025

A truly breathtaking adventure full of excitement and tenderness, How to Train Your Dragon is a delight for audiences, young and old.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2025