Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 340 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "As thought-provoking as it is visually compelling, The Witch delivers a deeply unsettling exercise in slow-building horror that suggests great things for debuting writer-director Robert Eggers." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 55% overall positive score and a 41% "definite recommend".
Writing in Variety, Justin Chang commented that "A fiercely committed ensemble and an exquisite sense of historical detail conspire to cast a highly atmospheric spell in The Witch, a strikingly achieved tale of a mid-17th-century New England family's steady descent into religious hysteria and madness." Yohana Desta of Mashable stated that The Witch is a "stunningly crafted experience that'll have you seeking out a church as soon as you leave the theater". Peter Travers, in his Rolling Stone review, gave the film 3½ stars, and wrote of the film: "Building his film on the diabolical aftershocks of Puritan repression, Eggers raises The Witch far above the horror herd. He doesn't need cheap tricks. Eggers merely directs us to look inside." Stephanie Zacharek summarized the movie in Time as "a triumph of tone", writing that "Although Eggers is extremely discreet—the things you don't see are more horrifying than those you do—the picture's relentlessness sometimes feels like torment." Gregory Wakeman, writing for CinemaBlend, gave it five out of five stars, writing that "[its] acting, lighting, music, writing, production design, cinematography, editing, and direction all immediately impress. While, at the same time, they combine to create an innately bewitching tale that keeps you on tenterhooks all the way up until its grandiose but enthralling finale." Ann Hornaday wrote in The Washington Post that the film joins the ranks of horror films such as The Exorcist, The Omen, and Rosemary's Baby, saying that The Witch "comports itself less like an imitator of those classics than their progenitor", which is "a tribute to a filmmaker who, despite his newcomer status, seems to have arrived in the full throes of maturity, in full control of his prodigious powers." Writing for Best of Netflix, Debiparna Chakraborty praised the narrative, saying "The Witch is a mesmerising exploration of the mundane horrors often spawned by barren isolation and religious fervour." Independent filmmaker Jay Bauman of RedLetterMedia named it his favorite film of 2016, enthusiastically stating: "I love it, I think it's a masterpiece... It's a first-time filmmaker which is shocking to me...because it feels like it's made by someone who's been making movies for decades who's a master of their craft".
However, some critics, as well as audiences, were less pleased with the film. Ethan Sacks of the New York Daily News wrote that the film does not suffer from the cinematography, acting, or setting, and early on it "seems that The Witch is tapping a higher metaphor for coming of age...or religious intolerance...or man's uneasy balance with nature...or something. It doesn't take long into the film's hour and a half running time, however, to break that spell." Critics noted that the film received backlash from audiences regarding its themes and slow approach to horror. Lesley Coffin criticized A24, saying it was "a huge mistake" to market The Witch as a terrifying horror film:
Not because it doesn't fit into the genre of horror, but because of the power of expectations. The less you know about this movie the better your experience will be, but everyone who saw it opening weekend probably walked in with too much knowledge and hype to really get as much out of it as they could have if the film had the veil of mystery.
HitFix writer Chris Eggertson blamed mainstream Hollywood more generally for the unenthusiastic response of some audiences, saying that The Witch "got under [his] skin profoundly, but it did not have the moment-to-moment, audience-pleasing shocks that moviegoers have become accustomed to thanks to movies like Sinister and The Purge and Paranormal Activity and every other Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes title in the canon."
Horror authors Stephen King and Brian Keene both reacted positively to the film. King tweeted significant praise for the film, writing: "The Witch scared the hell out of me. And it's a real movie, tense and thought-provoking as well as visceral." On social media, Keene stated: "The Witch is a gorgeous, thoughtful, scary horror film that 90% of the people in the theater with you will be too stupid to understand."
In July 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 136. It also ranked number 11 on The Hollywood Reporter's list of the "25 Best Horror Movies of the 21st Century."
Julia Alexander of Polygon wrote that The Witch "asks people to try and understand what life would have been like for a family of devout Christians living in solitude, terrified of what may happen if they go against the word of God". In The Atlantic, Alissa Wilkinson stated that many films featured at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, including The Witch, reveal a "resurgence of interest in the religious". Eve Tushnet commented in an article in TAC, which was also published in First Things, that The Witch's view of witchcraft is "not revisionist" and further said the film is "pervaded by the fear of God. There are occasional references to His mercy but only as something to beg for, not something to trust in".
A review by Adam R. Holz in Plugged In, a publication of the conservative Christian organisation Focus on the Family, heavily criticised the film, stating that "William is absolutely devoted to leading his family in holiness and the ways of the Lord, which should be a good thing. But the fruit of William's rigorous focus on dogmatic piety ... is deep fear and morbid meditations on hell, damnation and the forces of spiritual darkness." Josh Larsen of Think Christian, however, offered a different Christian explanation of the conclusion of the film, writing: "When it comes to encountering evil, the family in the film veers wildly back and forth between 'triumphalism' and 'defeatism,' two theological extremes", and "in refusing to allow for grace, they become easy pickings for the witch."
Emily VanDerWerff of Vox wrote:
A24 could have just as easily courted the approval of, say, theologians who have a fondness for Calvinism. The Witch takes place in Colonial America, and it unfolds from the perspective of period Christians who genuinely believe the woods around their tiny farm contain some sort of evil, supernatural being—and are ultimately proved correct.
