On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 65 reviews, with an average rating of 7.94/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Tim Burton and Johnny Depp team up to fête the life and work of cult hero Ed Wood, with typically strange and wonderful results." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.