On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 69% based on 195 reviews, with an average rating of 6.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Charlie Kaufman's ambitious directorial debut occasionally strains to connect, but ultimately provides fascinating insight into a writer's mind."[31] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[32] A number of critics have compared it to Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8½.[18][33][34]
In his review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert said, "I watched it the first time and knew it was a great film ... the subject of 'Synecdoche, New York' is nothing less than human life and how it works. Using a neurotic theater director from upstate New York, it encompasses every life and how it copes and fails. Think about it a little and, my god, it's about you. Whoever you are."[35] In 2009 Ebert wrote that the movie was the best of the decade.[7] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said, "To say that [it] is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now ... Despite its slippery way with time and space and narrative and Mr. Kaufman’s controlled grasp of the medium, Synecdoche, New York is as much a cry from the heart as it is an assertion of creative consciousness. It’s extravagantly conceptual but also tethered to the here and now."[27] In the Los Angeles Times, Carina Chocano called the film "wildly ambitious ... sprawling, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, frustrating, hard-to-follow and achingly, achingly sad."[16]
Negative reviews mostly called the film incomprehensible, pretentious, depressing, or self-indulgent. Rex Reed, Richard Brody,[36] and Roger Friedman[37] all labeled it one of the worst films of 2008. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a D+ and wrote, "I gave up making heads or tails of Synecdoche, New York, but I did get one message: The compulsion to stand outside of one's life and observe it to this degree isn't the mechanism of art—it's the structure of psychosis."[38] American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that "it seems more like an illustration of his script than a full-fledged movie, proving how much he needs a Spike Jonze or a Michel Gondry to realize his surrealistic conceits."[39]
The Moving Arts Film Journal ranked the film at No. 80 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time".[40] In addition, it is the 61st-most acclaimed film of the 21st century according to review aggregator They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?[41]
Top-ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top-ten lists of the best films of 2008.[42] Both Kimberly Jones and Marjorie Baumgarten of the Austin Chronicle named it the best film of the year, as did Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter.
It appeared on 101 "Best of 2008" lists, with 20 of them giving it the number-one spot.[43] Those who placed it in their top ten included Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, Richard Corliss of Time, Shawn Anthony Levy of The Oregonian, Josh Rosenblatt of the Austin Chronicle, Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News, Ty Burr and Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, Philip Martin of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Scott Foundas of LA Weekly, and Walter Chaw, Bill Chambers and Ian Pugh of Film Freak Central (all three of whom placed it at number one).
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times named it the best film of the 2000s.[7] In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, four critics ranked it among the 10 greatest films of all time,[44] and Ebert considered the film a strong contender for his own list.[45] Also in 2012, in Time, Richard Corliss ranked it 7th on his list of the "Greatest Movies of the Millennium (Thus Far)".[46]
In a 2016 BBC critics' poll, Synecdoche, New York was ranked the 20th-greatest film of the 21st century.[47]
In 2019, the film ranked as No. 7 in The 100 Best Films of the 21st Century poll conducted by The Guardian.[48]
