Reviews:
"The spare, starlit desert/forest/ocean imagery of Sendak's drawings is lovingly, even painstakingly preserved, and just as lovingly and painstakingly sifted into the action so that it never draws attention to itself as an effect per se." - 09/01/2009 Film Comment

"Spike Jonze is just the visionary talent to nurture Sendak's tale of a boy who creates a fantasy world full of wild things that embody his own fears bout the real one." - 09/17/2009 Rolling Stone

3.5 stars out of 4 -- "WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is a fiercely innovative film with surprising texture and nuance. It captures the joy and exuberance of childhood without shying away from its very real pains and woes." - 10/16/2009 USA Today

"[A] beautiful adaptation of the Maurice Sendak children's book....[An] intensely original and haunting movie..." - 10/14/2009 New York Times

3 stars out of 4 -- "The voice actors and the f/x artists give their fantastical characters personality.... - 10/14/2009 Chicago Sun-Times

4 stars out of 5 -- "Jonze not only remembers the emotions of youth, he makes us feel them....WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is so patient and non-judgmental that you're welcome to simply bliss out on the visuals." - 10/12/2009 Box Office

"Like the hero of the book, this Max projects a fantasy world from his yearnings, fear and anger. But the movie invests those projections with such intense and genuine wildness as to make their creator a veritable Wizard of Id." - 10/16/2009 Wall Street Journal

"Fleet of foot, emotionally attuned to its subject and instinctively faithful to its celebrated source, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE earns a lot of points for its hand-crafted look..." - 10/11/2009 Variety

"Whether the action is grand and exciting...or simple and human....it all feels genuine to the actual experience of childhood in ways that children's movies generally don't." -- Grade: A- - 10/15/2009 A.V. Club

"Spike Jonze not only respects the original text but also honors movie lovers with the same clarity of vision. This is one of the year's best." - 10/23/2009 Entertainment Weekly

"[A] film that manages to create its own reality and meaning, even while it bring's Sendak's visual world to life with startling accuracy." - 10/16/2009 Washington Post

4 stars out of 4 -- "[A] visual and emotional tour de force....The brilliant songs, by Karen O and the Kids, enhance the film's power to pull you in..." - 10/29/2009 Rolling Stone

Included in Entertainment Weekly's "The Best Films Of The Year" -- "[T]he filmmaker is in perfect harmony with the same wild things Sendak first identified for wise children over 45 years ago." - 12/25/2009 Entertainment Weekly

Ranked #6 in Rolling Stone's "The 10 Best Movies Of 2009" -- "All the joy and misplaced rage that goes into being a kid is in this movie." - 12/24/2009 Rolling Stone

4 stars out of 5 -- "[Jonze] reminds us that the simple pleasure of childhood is running around and screaming with abandon." - 12/07/2009 Uncut

"On a technical level, this movie is simply brilliant. The boots-on-the-ground/documentary feel mixes nearly perfect cinematography with real cool monsters in giant suits." - 03/01/2010 Premiere

3 stars out of 5 -- "[With] a childlike sense of awe, rage, delight and dislocation....It's true to Sendak's spirit and the night Max wore his wolf suit..." - 06/01/2010 Empire