[In Materialists, Celine Song] takes the foundations of a 2000s commercial romantic comedy, with its charismatic characters and witty dialogue, but infuses them with a sobriety and depth that elevates the plot. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 30, 2025

[Celine Song] offers a way to understand life as bounded by forces we cannot simply escape through agency and romantic willpower.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2025

New York resident Celine Song wants to remind her viewers, via women who hold centre stage, that people and cities only make sense if you stay malleable and allow yourselves to experience them, with as much open-mindedness as your station in life allows.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2025

...Materialists turns out to be a less charming, fluid, and effective film than its predecessor...[Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 28, 2025

The super strength of Materialists was its ability to accurately express how modern dating can be viewed. It also opened up the conversation on how matchmaking services would compete in a world where there are many apps to find people.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 28, 2025

You have to admire Song’s effort to subvert the norms of a shopworn genre, but Materialists is ultimately a disappointment.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2025

“Materialists” is the kind of movie that I most resent: one that is praised for being boring, which is mistaken for seriousness. It’s a bougie nothingburger, in other words.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2025

For all that it pokes at Deep Thoughts, Materialists is as shallow as Lucy.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2025

Jane Eyre can declare: “Reader I married him,” and we put down the book feeling satisfied, and confident of her future. For Lucy, there is no ultimate right or wrong.

Full Review | Jul 22, 2025

Song isn’t necessarily promoting ... shallow values, but suggesting that practical concerns are a ... part of healthy relationships while love still reigns supreme. If this is the idea, though, her movie doesn’t make a very convincing case for it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 22, 2025

it's a film that will have you blushing, kicking your feet, and re-examining how you value yourself as a person.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 21, 2025

This film has comedic scenes from time to time, but Song’s direction allows them to be depicted with gravity.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 19, 2025

If act one is a rom-com, and act two is a romantic drama, act three surprises by being the last thing a romance-minded viewer would expect: A thoughtful and precise dissection of all the rules of romance movies.

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

At first, "Materialists" offers a pretty searing take down of modern dating culture. But then it tries to become a romantic comedy in the last 15 minutes.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2025

...at the heart of every romantic movie, and every real-life romantic partnership, is a choice. A choice between pragmatism and emotion. Materialists is just willing to examine the validity of both options in a way that other movies are hesitant to do.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 15, 2025

While Materialists is beautifully lensed by returning cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, there’s an empty sheen to a disappointingly sterile and perplexingly shallow sophomore offering.

Full Review | Jul 13, 2025

Rom-coms are predictable, and MATERIALISTS, in that way, is predictable. But instead of feeling like I need to be angry or sad with the characters, watching MATERIALISTS feels like warmed butter in every pleasurable sense.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 12, 2025

Song’s mastery of the filmmaking form can’t be overstated, while Johnson, Evans, and Pascal are all terrific and possess note-perfect alchemy together.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 11, 2025

There should be a sense of longing or yearning here, one that makes us chase each lingering glance or touch of the hands. Materialists comes across as cold, partially because of the film’s editing choices that cause conversations to feel one-sided.

Full Review | Jul 8, 2025

A contradictory malaise makes Materialists a somewhat perplexing experience as Song sets her characters up for a grand epiphany about love, marriage, and economic realities but denies exploring any hard truths.

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