--- title: "Natural Born Killers: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/natural-born-killers/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/natural-born-killers" critics_score: 56 critics_reviews: 10 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." --- # Natural Born Killers (1994): what the critics said Critics' score 56 from 10 reviews: 5 positive, 1 mixed, 4 negative. The reviews split almost down the middle, and the split runs partly along lines of time. Most critics writing in 1994 are impressed: Oliver Stone’s film is taken as an audacious and relevant satire of a culture that turns murderers into celebrities and a media that profits from them. Even its detractors concede the craft. Praise clusters on Stone’s visual assault, the editing across film stocks and Robert Richardson’s cinematography, with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis singled out among the performances. Reservations cluster on the satire itself, which several critics find obvious and heavy-handed and, with distance, dated, and on a plot they call thin and dialogue they call clichéd. The spread is wide. The New Yorker dissents from the 1994 enthusiasm, finding the film glib and oddly undisturbing for its subject, while The Guardian, revisiting it in 2024, judges it close to unwatchable. Later critics at Slant and Collider disagree, arguing the style alone keeps it fascinating. ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 26 August 1994. The critic praises the film's satirical take on media obsession with violence and celebrity criminals, noting how it captures the moral emptiness of killers and the feeding frenzy it inspires. Stone's stylistic excesses and the performances, especially by Harrelson and Lewis, are highlighted as effective in delivering a slap-in-the-face indictment of society. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/natural-born-killers-1994) ## Variety — Todd McCarthy Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 8 August 1994. The film is a heavy-duty acid trip and Oliver Stone’s most exciting work from a filmmaking standpoint, a scabrous and relevant look at society promoting murderers as pop icons and the media profiting from it. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1994/film/reviews/natural-born-killers-2-1200438238/) ## Los Angeles Times — KENNETH TURAN Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 26 August 1994. This is the movie Oliver Stone was born to make, an audacious and astonishing vision of media darlings who are serial killers, delivered with relentless visual dexterity that mocks societal fascination with violence. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-08-26-ca-31401-story.html) ## Slant Magazine — Jake Cole Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 9 October 2023. The critic finds the film a splenetic, sophomoric but captivating media satire whose visual inventiveness and hallucinogenic style make it an enduringly fascinating achievement, even if its commentary is subordinated to surface pleasures. The 4K restoration is praised for capturing the film's shifting formats and saturated colors better than ever. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/natural-born-killers-4k-uhd-blu-ray-review-oliver-stone/) ## The New Yorker — Terrence Rafferty Fi1m's normalised score 40/100 (inferred from the text). 29 August 1994. Stone’s flashy, hyperbolic film sells itself as shocking satire but is one of the least disturbing films about mass murder, a frivolous barrage of glib ideas that fails to make viewers think anew about violence or culture. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/09/05/1994-09-05-106-tny-cards-000153938) ## Empire — Clark Collis Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. Oliver Stone's film is an assault from start to finish that succeeds as a rare risk-taking audio-visual experience and constructs a frighteningly recognisable vision of America. It is difficult to describe as good entertainment in any classical sense, with a non-existent plot, absurdly clichéd dialogue and a thesis rammed home very crudely. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/natural-born-killers-review/) ## Time Out — GA Fi1m's normalised score 30/100 (inferred from the text). 23 May 2012. The film is a technically flashy but ultimately unremarkable variation on familiar outlaw-couple stories, with broad media satire and little room for character development. Its main virtue is being less explicit than the surrounding hype suggested, but overall it feels turgid. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/natural-born-killers) ## The Guardian Fi1m's normalised score 20/100 (inferred from the text). 26 August 2024. The critic finds Stone's 1994 film tiresome and close to unwatchable, criticizing its grotesque, garish style and heavy-handed barrage of visual effects in service of obvious points about media, violence and celebrity. They single out its value as a time-capsule of early-90s American culture and the tabloid media's parasitic relationship with violent actors. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/26/natural-born-killers-movie-oliver-stone) ## Collider — Andre Dellamorte Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 30 October 2009. The critic finds the film's satire on media and celebrity killers somewhat dated but praises Oliver Stone's bold visual style, inventive editing across film stocks, and Robert Richardson's cinematography as the elements that make it enduring and hard to look away from. [Read the review](https://collider.com/natural-born-killers-unrated-directors-cut-blu-ray-review/) ## Eye for Film — Angus Wolfe Murray Rating 3/5. 29 November 2002. The critic finds the film an indulgent, gratuitous splatter spree about senseless killers that treats the audience as cretins and fails to make its media satire point effectively despite flashy editing. Performances by the leads and Tommy Lee Jones are noted, but the overall result is seen as a messy, excessive mess. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/natural-born-killers-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/natural-born-killers.md