Spider-Man: Brand New Day: what the critics really think

This article contains no personal opinion. It was not written after a screening and will not tell you whether the film is any good. Its purpose is more verifiable: to gather what the aggregators display and what the critics have put their names to, attributing every claim to its author.

Precision here is not a pose: on release day, scores move by the hour and projected takings are not takings. Every figure is therefore dated. For the ending rather than the reception, our breakdown of the ending and the post-credits scene covers that question separately.

The aggregate scores as of 29 July 2026, and why they are still moving

Rotten Tomatoes: 91% and Certified Fresh status

At the reading of 29 July 2026, the film shows a 91% Tomatometer and earns Certified Fresh status, from 163 counted reviews — a total that climbed during the day to 167 and then 168 reviews. The day before, the page still showed 90% from 135 reviews, and it had even dipped back to around 88% when only a hundred or so reviews had been taken in.

Three points of difference in twenty-four hours, purely because the sample was filling up: two articles published a day apart can quote two different figures without either being wrong. For reference, the character's previous instalments sit between 91% and 93%. Our analyses of Homecoming and Far From Home revisit each of them.

Metacritic: 70 out of 100, and zero negative reviews

On Metacritic, which weights scores instead of sorting them into thumbs up or thumbs down, the film gets 70 out of 100 as of 29 July 2026, in the 'Generally Favorable' category. The score rests on 42 press reviews: 32 positive, 10 mixed, none negative. An update took the total to 43 reviews, 33 of them positive, still with no negative verdict.

The gap between the two platforms is in no way a contradiction. The Tomatometer counts the share of favourable reviews: a lukewarm but positive review weighs as much as a rave, whereas the Metascore averages converted ratings. A film that almost everyone finds good without finding it exceptional produces exactly this profile.

What the critics agree on, in the film's favour

A 'grounded' Spider-Man, brought back to street level

The word that comes up most often is 'grounded'. Rotten Tomatoes headlined its round-up of the first reviews 'The Most Grounded, Mature Spider-Man Story Yet'. The Playlist sums the film up as 'Dark, grounded, vulnerable, and unexpectedly moving', Looper welcomes the return to 'street-level stories', and the New York Post notes that there is more power in protecting your own city than in saving the world. This is the broadest common ground in the critical reception.

In The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney describes 'a heavily burdened Spider-Man, rendered more vulnerable by his sense of loss' and praises a film that 'has the good sense to stop banging on about the damn multiverse'. The San Francisco Chronicle mentions "the mature melancholy of 'The Empire Strikes Back'".

This shift was already visible in our breakdown of the final trailer; it stems from the forgetting spell whose consequences we weighed up in our analysis of what No Way Home changed.

Tom Holland, the broadest point of agreement

It is on Tom Holland's performance that the English-language critics converge most. David Rooney sums up his verdict with a 'Never better'. Mike Ryan, for The Hard Pass, speaks of 'his best performance as Peter', and ComicBook.com runs the headline 'Tom Holland's best performance yet'. Empire highlights a less puppyish Peter Parker, hardened by grief and solitude.

The most telling signal comes from the harshest voices. David Ehrlich gave the film only a C- in IndieWire and describes it as 'a dull and downbeat Marvel sequel'; he nonetheless concedes that Holland delivers his 'most nuanced and mature Spider-Man performance to date'. When an avowed detractor saves the actor, the agreement becomes hard to dispute — and you can read it on our Spider-Man figures.

Tom Holland Spider-Man Figure

Tom Holland's performance is the point on which the press agrees most widely, including among those who did not like the film. This figure takes up the silhouette of his version of the character, with a level of detail made for a display cabinet or a desk shelf.

View the product — €79.90

Jon Bernthal and the Frank Castle / Peter Parker pairing

A third strength cited across the board: the return of Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, and his fractious double act with Peter Parker. For Liz Shannon Miller (Consequence, B+), 'Bernthal might be the cast highlight', and it is 'pure pleasure to watch Frank and Peter yell at each other'. William Bibbiani, in TheWrap, describes him as 'a perfect foil for Tom Holland' and calls the pairing 'comedy gold'.

Charlie Ridgely, who rates the film 8 out of 10 in Collider, writes that 'the biggest improvement belongs to Bernthal's Punisher'. John Nugent, for Empire, describes a Frank Castle who is a 'sometime frenemy'. Our profile of Frank Castle and his lethal methods and our history of their relationship, from enemies to unstable partners cover the background.

The reservations that come up most often

No review was classed as negative as of 29 July 2026: these are caveats voiced inside broadly favourable pieces. Some of them, however, come up across several independent writers.

The running time and the sense of overload

The one genuinely shared criticism concerns the running time. Owen Gleiberman, in Variety, judges the film 'half an hour too long', a view echoed by several colleagues describing a bloated narrative. The same critic concedes that after No Way Home the film 'can feel like a balm of contemplative drama', but his verdict stays guarded: 'watchable without ever being transporting'.

The tie-ins to the rest of the Marvel universe

A second recurring theme: the concessions made to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the reduced room left to the Peter, MJ and Ned trio. Edward Douglas, of the Weekend Warrior, quoted by Rotten Tomatoes, writes that the scenes between Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon are the best in the film, even though the three of them are brought together far less often than in the previous instalments. Rolling Stone sees in it a cynical set-up for future crossovers, IndieWire a film that mostly serves to keep us waiting.

The passage that follows mentions a casting element announced before release. Empire wonders what purpose Bruce Banner's appearance serves, and John Nugent, who nonetheless awards four stars out of five, writes that this intrusion smashes 'not only buildings but also the narrative pace'. The context is retraced in our round-up of the fights between Spider-Man and Hulk.

The reservation is far from unanimous: Consequence, by contrast, enjoys these connections and notes no sidelining of the trio, and Empire rates those same scenes among the most moving in the film.

The antagonist and the logic of the script

A third caveat, far more isolated, takes aim at the antagonist. William Bibbiani, one of the most enthusiastic voices (85 out of 100 on Metacritic), slips in that it is only on the way home that you realise the villain's plan does not hold up. David Ehrlich raises a different grievance: he finds the backstory formulaic and reckons it breaks the rhythm. We had already reviewed the film's announced villains.

Peter Bradshaw's verdict in The Guardian

Peter Bradshaw awards three stars out of five in The Guardian. He describes a film carried by Zendaya, who in his view rescues it, but finds the whole thing too familiar, without the freshness of the animated Spider-Verse films, and concludes that 'a more radical reboot is needed'. That view commits its author, not the press as a whole: TheWrap and The Daily Beast are among the far more glowing reviews logged on Metacritic. The animated films he invokes have a universe of their own, carried on in our Spider-Verse and multiverse range.

How the French press sees it

As of 29 July 2026, the day of its French release, the film shows on AlloCiné a press rating of 3.2 out of 5 across 17 outlets counted, and an audience rating of 4.2 out of 5 from 268 ratings. Dated readings, not a final tally: they keep changing. Without the counters, the observation fits in one sentence — a decent press reception without being rapturous, a warmer audience response at the first screenings.

The audience rating calls for caution: a few hundred votes collected on the day itself come from the most impatient fans. As for comparing the two worlds directly, best not to: an average across 17 outlets and a percentage across more than 160 reviews measure neither the same thing nor on the same basis.

Spider-Man No Way Home Compression T-Shirt

Every viewing guide published around the release agrees on a single prerequisite: rewatch No Way Home. This compression T-shirt takes up the suit from that pivotal chapter, with a close-fitting cut made for sport as much as for the evening screening.

View the product — €39.90

The commercial opening, figure by figure

The financial side calls for the same discipline: telling what has been banked from what has merely been projected. As of 29 July 2026, most of the amounts doing the rounds fall into the second category. The release also comes with a merchandise offering, gathered in our Brand New Day merch selection.

China, the first big market to open

Released in China on Wednesday 29 July 2026, two days before North America, the film took 27 million yuan from the midnight screenings alone, a record across all releases for five years, with more than 430,000 admissions. The 100 million yuan mark was passed at 10.22am, the 200 million mark at 6.24pm, according to Maoyan and Lighthouse.

The rest is projection. Maoyan forecast more than 250 million yuan on the first day, which would be the best opening for a superhero film in China since Far From Home. Across the full run, Maoyan puts the film at around 1.73 billion yuan, Dengta beyond 1.8 billion — the biggest Hollywood success in China since Avengers: Endgame, were that to be borne out.

The first Paris screenings

In France, the only indicator on the day comes from the first Paris screenings. According to the specialist site Zickma, which draws on the CBO Box Office panel, the film reportedly drew 12,421 admissions across 26 prints, the best opening of the year ahead of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (7,603 admissions). It beats No Way Home (9,775 across 28 prints), Far From Home (7,625) and Homecoming (4,224), but stays well short of the Sam Raimi era: 27,995 for Spider-Man 3.

Mind their scope: they only cover the morning showings in around twenty Paris cinemas, do not settle the national result, and come from a single source. Nationally, the three previous instalments totalled 2,311,502 admissions for Homecoming, 3,226,105 for Far From Home and 7,319,651 for No Way Home, the most-watched superhero film in France.

US pre-sales and projections

In the United States, where the film opens on 31 July 2026, the most solid signal comes from pre-sales. Fandango announced that it had become its biggest first-day pre-seller of 2026, ahead of The Odyssey, and that it featured in its all-time top 10. Deadline mentioned the best first-day pre-sales in five years, a record held until then by No Way Home, and put forward more than 80 million dollars. Figures released by Fandango, not verified by a third party.

The opening projections divide analysts as rarely before: 180 to 195 million dollars for Deadline on the basis of the National Research Group, 230 to 250 million for Box Office Pro, 228 to 274 million for Box Office Theory, 260 to 280 million for Variety. Even the most cautious estimate would beat the 2026 record set by Toy Story 5, 159,677,837 dollars according to Box Office Mojo. We were already following this momentum in our article on the pre-sales records.

Worldwide, Deadline was aiming at around 465 million dollars for the opening weekend, after first mentioning 425 million: that would be the second-biggest global opening in Sony's history, behind the 600.5 million of No Way Home. The final figures will not be known until 3 August 2026.

Screens and formats: a detail that changes the screening

The film opens on around 4,300 screens in North America according to Deadline, on a net budget estimated at 225 million dollars. Above all, it is not showing in IMAX in most markets: Christopher Nolan has locked up the circuit with The Odyssey through an exclusivity of about three weeks, China being the exception. Brand New Day is still programmed in ScreenX, 4DX and PXL: check the listing when you book.

Marvel Spider-Man Poster

A release on this scale is rarely remembered for its figures. This Marvel poster keeps a trace of it on the wall, in a format that frames easily and sits just as well in a living room as in a teenager's bedroom.

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The campaign artwork feeds our Spider-Man posters, and the suit motifs our Spider-Man T-shirts.

What to take away before you go and see it

Running time, certification and content advice

The film runs 2 hr 25, that is 145 minutes — 144 minutes and 49 seconds exactly according to the BBFC, credits included. It is the second-longest Spider-Man, behind No Way Home (148 minutes), ahead of Homecoming (133) and Far From Home (129). In France, it is rated Tous publics, with no legal restriction, under exhibition visa number 167934 issued by the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée on 6 July 2026, with no advisory attached.

Ratings bodies outside France are more circumspect. The Motion Picture Association rates the film PG-13 for 'sequences of action/violence and some language'. The BBFC settles on a 12A with four descriptors: 'moderate violence, threat, injury detail, implied strong language'. Its listing describes frequent fights, bladed weapons and explosions, and flags bloodied characters, including a close-up of a bloodied face.

Common Sense Media recommends the film from age 11 and places the violence at the highest level of its scale: comic-book-style fights, bloody injuries, weapons, explosions and a torture scene. Parents who have left a review on the same site put it on average from age 8. OSV News, a Catholic agency, gives it an A-III rating, for adults only: John Mulderig finds the underlying values sound, but the excess of coarse dialogue questionable even for older teenagers.

What you need to have seen, and how long to stay in your seat

If you are only going to rewatch one film, every guide points to the same one: No Way Home. The spell cast by Doctor Strange is the direct starting point of this chapter, whose story picks up four years later. Most guides add the rest of the trilogy, and even Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame — reason enough for a detour via our Spider-Man DVDs and films and via our guide to getting ready before the screening.

Our pillar guide to all the Spider-Man films in order covers every version of the character, and the complete MCU chronology places it back within the saga. A practical point: there is no mid-credits scene. Only one bonus sequence exists, right at the very end, after the studio logos. Plenty of viewers leave believing there is nothing.

Who this film is for, based on the criteria reported

From the elements listed above alone, a few profiles emerge without any judgement being passed. If what you want from a Spider-Man is a grounded, urban story centred on personal stakes rather than cosmic ones, the critics' vocabulary describes what you are looking for. And if you are coming for Tom Holland, the agreement there too is the broadest.

Conversely, if you were hoping for the formal daring of the animated Spider-Verse films, Peter Bradshaw's reservation applies to you; if long features wear you down, the 2 hr 25 running time is the most widely shared complaint. And if you have not been following the Marvel universe lately, Rolling Stone and IndieWire alike describe heavy franchise tie-ins, whereas Consequence enjoys them — a disagreement that our Spider-Man universe pillar helps put in perspective.

For families, it reads on two levels. The French Tous publics rating imposes nothing, but ratings bodies elsewhere flag sustained violence, an age-11 threshold at Common Sense Media and an adults rating at OSV News — enough to decide by, depending on how sensitive your child is. Our Spider-Man masks, our gift ideas and our costume guide carry the screening on at home.

The essential part is still to be written: the real opening-weekend figures and the scores settling down. Alongside that, our articles cover the design of the Fresh Start suit and Michael Giacchino's score. This film is also the last Marvel Studios feature before Avengers: Doomsday, scheduled for 18 December 2026.