Review Roundup: HADESTOWN: THE MUSICAL Comes to Movie Theaters

Following its world premiere at Tribeca Festival earlier this summer, the live theater capture of the Tony Award-winning hit musical Hadestown, shot in the West End last year, will be released in North America for five nights only, beginning July 24. Read the reviews below!

Filmed in London by director Brett Sullivan of Steam Motion and Sound, Hadestown: The Musical features the five original principal cast members of the Broadway company: Reeve Carney as Orpheus, André De Shields’ Tony Award-winning turn as Hermes, Amber Gray as Persephone, Eva Noblezada as Eurydice, and Patrick Page as Hades. 

The film also features Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne and Allie Daniel as Fates, Lauren Azania, Tiago Dhondt Bamberger, Ryesha Higgs, Waylon Jacobs and Christopher Short as Workers, and Lucinda Buckley, Francessca Daniella-Baker, Winny Herbert and Miriam Nyarko as Swings. Mara Isaacs, Dale Franzen, Hunter Arnold, and Tom Kirdahy serve as producers of the film and the production. 

The production, written by Anaïs Mitchell and directed by Rachel Chavkin, won eight Tony Awards in 2019, including Best Musical, and the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.  

Hadestown is in its 7th year on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 W 48th Street) and is in its 3rd year in the West End (returning to London, five years after its 2018 engagement at The National Theatre). The record-breaking North American tour completed its coast-to-coast 3-year run in 2024, and productions have played to acclaim across the globe in South Korea, Sydney, Melbourne, and Amsterdam.

Chris Azzopardi, The New York Times: Near the end, as suspense builds from an extreme close-up of Hermes’ shoes tapping their way into the scene, it’s clear that Sullivan isn’t just honoring the stage production. He is showing us what only cinema can.

Wilson Chapman, Indie Wire: You can really see De Shields’ eyes light up in the show’s emotional coda, which isn’t that big scene from the Orpheus and Eurydice myth everyone knows — as staged in “Hadestown,” it’s actually decidedly underwhelming. The real tearjerker moment of the show has always been what follows: Hermes leads the company in singing this song and telling this tale again. It’s both a meta moment about how theater will ensure a story lives forever and a warm statement of hope: not giving up in a bleak world, but instead keeping up hope for a better one.

Emma Stone, Awards Daily: Carney, Noblezada, De Shields, and Page all lent their own flair to the characters. Amber Gray’s Persephone is electric, raw and furious. Her spring-green dress stands out against the set’s warm browns and reds. She bares her teeth to the camera. Her raspy, growling voice and defiant attitude set her ablaze against the rest of the cast. Page’s Hades stands tall and distant, an untouchable patriarch — but on camera, the subtleties in his expression betray emotions we don’t get to see outside of the film.

Lou Harry, Midwest Film Journal: Still, while I’ll always advocate for seeing shows live in the form they are intended, geography and economics can make that impossible. And original casts don’t stick around forever. On stage, Hadestown is a uniquely successful effort that, after it eventually closes on Broadway, might drift into the afterlife of memory (or lesser productions). Not to push a mythic metaphor too hard, but instead of it fading away, this recording gives it a rebirth of sorts.

Keina Chow, The Nerds of Color: Together with Carney and Noblezada’s Orpheus and Eurydice, this cast makes as strong a case as any for why Hadestown remains one of the most essential musicals of the last decade. And now you can experience it for yourself on the big screen.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety: The show feels like a street dance crossed with a concert (at one point the musicians are introduced by name) that happens to have a hallowed myth threaded down the middle of it. The three Fates (Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne, and Allie Daniel) orbit the action like spitfire satellites. As directed by Brett Sullivan, “Hadestown: The Musical” transmits the show’s earthy electricity. That said, it’s still striking that the bare-bones film version of a Broadway musical that isn’t “Hamilton” is going to make $10 million at the box office this weekend. As the audience response to it in the movie makes clear, “Hadestown” is a show with a worshipful following. The movie made me a believer.

Matt Windman, amNY: No proshot can fully replicate live theater. “Wait for Me,” overwhelming in person as swinging lamps cut through the darkness, loses some force on screen, and a few audience cutaways are unnecessary. But with the Broadway production still running at the Walter Kerr Theatre, the film serves a different purpose. It preserves the performances that helped define the show, reveals details unavailable from most theater seats and confirms that “Hadestown” still has plenty to tell us.

Roger Moore, Movie Nation: “Hadestown” isn’t “Urinetown” or “Waitress,” but feels kind of forgettable the way too many shows “of their moment” do. It’s decently if not dazzlingly danced and well-sung. But it lacks the novelty, pizzaz and wit of “Hamilton.” It does, however, have that “theatre nerds will love it” cachet, which had a hand in turning “Rent” into a phenomenon. And if you’re looking for an excuse to write off this review because you disagree with it, I wasn’t nuts about “Rent” either.