Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 69% based on 264 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It may not rank with Scorsese's best work, but Shutter Island's gleefully unapologetic genre thrills represent the director at his most unrestrained."[30] On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[31] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average "C+" grade, on an A+ to F scale.[32]
Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer gave the film four out of four stars, claiming, "After four decades, Martin Scorsese has earned the right to deliver a simple treatment of a simple theme with flair."[33] Writing for The Wall Street Journal, John Anderson highly praised the film, suggesting it "requires multiple viewings to be fully realized as a work of art. Its process is more important than its story, its structure more important than the almost perfunctory plot twists it perpetrates. It's a thriller, a crime story and a tortured psychological parable about collective guilt."[34]
Awarding the film three and a half stars out of four, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "the movie is about: atmosphere, ominous portents, the erosion of Teddy's confidence and even his identity. It's all done with flawless directorial command. Scorsese has fear to evoke, and he does it with many notes."[35]
The Orlando Sentinel's Roger Moore, who gave the film two and a half stars out of four, wrote, "It's not bad, but as Scorsese, America's greatest living filmmaker and film history buff should know, even Hitchcock came up short on occasion. See for yourself."[36] Dana Stevens of Slate described the film "an aesthetically and at times intellectually exciting puzzle, but it's never emotionally involving".[37] The Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday negatively described the film as being "weird".[38] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote in his review that "Something TERRIBLE is afoot. Sadly, that something turns out to be the movie itself."[39]
Keith Uhlich of Time Out New York named Shutter Island the fifth-best film of 2010.[40]
Box office
Shutter Island was released alongside The Ghost Writer, and with $41 million finished first at the box office and gave Scorsese his highest-grossing box office opening to-date.[41] The film remained at #1 in its second weekend, with $22.2 million.[42] Eventually, it grossed worldwide $294,805,697[2] and became Scorsese's second highest-grossing film worldwide.[43] It is Scorsese's fifth movie to debut at the box office at #1 following Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, and The Departed.
Home media
Shutter Island was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 8, 2010, in the US[44] and on August 2, 2010, in the UK.[45] The UK release featured two editions—a standard edition and a limited steel-case edition.[46] For the tenth anniversary of the film's release, Paramount Pictures released a 4K steelbook and Blu-ray version on February 11, 2020.[47]
