--- title: "Addams Family Values" year: 1993 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/addams-family-values" fi1m_score: 78 critics_score: 75 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-17T00:57:30.545407+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T00:57:30.993065+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Addams Family Values (1993) Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld · 1h 34m · MPA PG-13 · Comedy, Family, Fantasy **Fi1m score: 78** · Critics 75 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* The nanny wants to kill Fester for his money; the family would have thought that a perfectly good reason to marry him > Barry Sonnenfeld’s sequel is sharper and funnier than the original, and the summer-camp half, with Christina Ricci at her most immovable, is close to perfect. The other half, in which Joan Cusack hunts Uncle Fester, is enjoyable but runs out of road. ## Synopsis Morticia (Anjelica Huston) and Gomez Addams (Raúl Juliá) have a third child, a moustached baby called Pubert, and his older siblings Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) set about getting rid of him with a guillotine and a drop from the roof. The family advertises for a nanny and gets Debbie Jellinsky (Joan Cusack), a woman in pale pink who takes one look at Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) and his fortune and decides to marry him. To clear the children out of her way, she has them packed off to Camp Chippewa, a place of canoes and relentless cheer run by Gary Granger and Becky Martin-Granger (Peter MacNicol, Christine Baranski), where Wednesday meets an allergic boy called Joel Glicker (David Krumholtz). ## Review Barry Sonnenfeld’s first *Addams Family*, from 1991, was a string of sketches looking for a story. *Addams Family Values* has found one. Paul Rudnick’s script gives the family a new baby, Pubert, whom Wednesday and Pugsley try to kill, and a new nanny, Debbie Jellinsky, who wants Uncle Fester’s fortune and does not much mind what happens to Fester. The children are packed off to summer camp to get them out of her way. It is 94 minutes long, funnier than the original, and about a third of it is as good as this sort of comedy gets. We recommend it, with the caveat that the two halves never quite join. The camp is where the film lives. Camp Chippewa is run by Gary Granger and Becky Martin-Granger (Peter MacNicol and Christine Baranski), and Ken Adam builds it out of blond wood, bunting and a lake the colour of a swimming pool. Theoni V. Aldredge puts every camper in shorts and a polo shirt, so that Wednesday’s black dress reads as a hole in the picture. Christina Ricci does almost nothing with her face for an hour and gets the biggest laughs by doing it. David Krumholtz’s Joel Glicker, a boy with allergies and an interest in the macabre, is her first admirer, and their scenes are played dead straight. The other half belongs to Joan Cusack. Debbie arrives in pastels with a smile that stops short of her eyes, and Cusack plays her as a woman who finds the Addamses a personal insult. Christopher Lloyd’s Fester, bald, grey and hopeful, falls for her at once. Gomez’s lesson in how to romance a lady, delivered to Fester with total seriousness, is the best scene the two men share. The trouble is that once Debbie has her hands on Fester, Rudnick has nowhere for her to go except to try the same thing again, louder, and Sonnenfeld’s habit of shoving the camera into faces starts to look like impatience. Anjelica Huston and Raúl Juliá remain the reason it has a heart. Gomez and Morticia are a married couple in a family comedy who still want to go to bed with each other, and the film treats their devotion as its one fixed point. Juliá plays every line as if it were the most wonderful news he has ever heard, and Huston drifts through the house as if it had been built around her. Their scenes with the baby are the weakest in the film: Pubert is a prop with a moustache, and the children’s attempts to dispatch him are mechanical. The film’s best stretch is the camp’s Thanksgiving play, a pageant in which Gary and Becky cast the pretty children as Pilgrims and everyone else as Indians. We will not say how it goes, but we laughed until it hurt, and then realised, midway through, that Rudnick had slipped a grievance about who gets to be in the picture into a PG comedy about a family that keeps a severed hand as a pet. Marc Shaiman holds the finger-snapping theme in reserve and spends most of his score on brass that sounds like a funeral band that has cheered up. Arthur Schmidt and Jim Miller cut between the mansion and the camp briskly, and the film never drags. It does run out of plot. The last movement gathers everyone into one room, and the resolution owes more to luck than to anything anyone has decided. Carol Kane’s Granny and Carel Struycken’s Lurch are there for reaction shots and get a handful of lines. The sick jokes, though funnier than the first film’s, are mostly the same jokes. This is the film where Sonnenfeld’s style found a subject: wide lenses, low angles, actors shot from below like statues, and a family who are supposed to loom. It likes its monsters, cannot stand the nice people, and never asks the children to learn a lesson. Watch it with children old enough to enjoy a baby under a guillotine and not yet old enough to ask why. The adults will get the other jokes, and there are more of those than the certificate suggests. *Fi1m score 78, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics call it a rare sequel that improves on the original: funnier, darker and with rather more plot. The praise clusters around the cast. Anjelica Huston and Raúl Juliá are repeatedly described as a genuinely romantic screen couple, Christina Ricci’s deadpan Wednesday and the summer camp scenes are singled out by nearly everyone, and Joan Cusack’s scheming nanny is welcomed as the ideal new villain. Barry Sonnenfeld’s direction and the production design also draw approval, as does Paul Rudnick’s script for its sharper double entendres and satirical jabs. The reservations are about story and stamina. Several find the plot slim and episodic, and the Los Angeles Times says the frenetic pace eventually tips into tedium. The Independent thinks it could be more savage, and Time Out rates it merely passable, no more coherent than the first film. The spread is otherwise narrow: six positive, two mixed, none negative, and the retrospective reviews written years later are the warmest. ### Reviews we read (8) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (3.5/4): The critic finds this sequel funnier than the original, praising its inventive subplots, sight gags, and the affectionate dynamic between Gomez and Morticia. Joan Cusack's addition as the nanny and the concrete realization of the Addams world are highlighted as strengths. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/addams-family-values-1993) - **The AV Club**, Tatiana Tenreyro (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the sequel more memorable than the original, praising how it deepens the characters and makes the Addams family relatable despite their outsider status. They single out the Thanksgiving play climax and Wednesday’s defiant speech for particular praise. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/addams-family-values-gave-wednesday-addams-her-moment-i-1846420071) - **Empire**, Angie Errigo (80/100, inferred): The review calls it a funnier sequel with more of a plot, highlighting the strong cast, Ricci's droll performance at camp, and Sonnenfeld's stylish direction. It concludes that the children steal the show in this silly but entertaining alternative to typical kids' films. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/addams-family-values-review/) - **Variety**, Leonard Klady (80/100, inferred): The review notes the film's slim story is offset by technical razzle-dazzle, a winning cast, and an anarchic, politically incorrect spirit. Huston and Julia are singled out as a magical screen couple, with strong contributions from Ricci, Cusack, and production design. [Read](https://variety.com/1993/film/reviews/addams-family-values-1200434365/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Peter Rainer (70/100, inferred): The kinetically nutty film delivers more laughs than its predecessor despite eventual tedium, thanks to Sonnenfeld and Rudnick's comic assault and strong performances like Huston’s Morticia and Ricci’s Wednesday. It is praised for showing the Addamses as more stable than outsiders but critiqued for overfamiliar shtick and frenetic direction. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-11-19-ca-58356-story.html) - **The Independent**, Adam Mars-Jones (65/100, inferred): The critic notes that while only a few things match the promise of the title, the film earns points for its effort and gives the Addams principals dignity and passion. It praises the camp scenes showcasing Wednesday's dry wit and the family's perversions but suggests it could be more savage. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-new-releases-unnatural-relations-adam-marsjones-on-the-second-bigscreen-outing-for-the-addams-family-plus-roundup-1466551.html) - **Time Out**, NF (50/100, inferred): As sequels go, this is passable: no more coherent than the episodic first instalment, but with enough sick humour to satisfy the mildly depraved. The plot involves the new baby Pubert and a scheming nanny targeting the family fortune. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/addams-family-values) - **Den of Geek** (90/100, inferred): The critic ranks Addams Family Values as the best of the Addams Family movies, calling it a darker, funnier improvement on the original with sharper double entendres and a perfect new villain in Joan Cusack's Debbie Jellinsky. They single out the contemporary satirical jabs and the strong performances, especially Raúl Juliá's Gomez. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-addams-family-movies-ranked-from-worst-to-best/) ## Details - **Director:** Barry Sonnenfeld - **Director:** Barry Sonnenfeld - **Screenplay:** Paul Rudnick - **Cinematography:** Donald Peterman - **Editor:** Jim Miller, Arthur Schmidt - **Music:** Marc Shaiman - **Production design:** Ken Adam - **Costume design:** Theoni V. Aldredge - **Producer:** Scott Rudin - **Cast:** Anjelica Huston as Morticia Addams; Raúl Juliá as Gomez Addams; Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fester; Joan Cusack as Debbie Jellinsky; Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams; Carol Kane as Granny; Jimmy Workman as Pugsley Addams; David Krumholtz as Joel Glicker - **Runtime:** 1h 34m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 19 November 1993 - **Genres:** Comedy, Family, Fantasy - **Budget:** $47 million - **Box office:** $49 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb2FTulPpOA ## Where to watch in the US - Paramount+: streaming, hd - Pluto TV: free - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Apple TV: add-on, uhd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1994: Best Production Design (nominated) ## If you liked this - *The Addams Family* (1991), Fi1m 77: The first one: looser, less funny, but the house and the couple are already there — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-addams-family.md) - *Beetlejuice* (1988), Fi1m 83: The other great comedy in which the dead are nicer than the living — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/beetlejuice.md) - *The Witches* (1990): Roeg’s Dahl adaptation frightens children properly and never apologises for it - *Death Becomes Her* (1992): Streep and Hawn try to murder each other in high heels; Zemeckis approves - *Delicatessen* (1991), Fi1m 83: A French butcher’s block comedy in the same sepia, with better cannibalism jokes — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/delicatessen.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. 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