The Playlist by Jason Bailey

Catherine Called Birdy is delightfully witty, irrelevant, and modern-minded while carefully dodging the self-satisfaction and smugness that those descriptors can conjure up.

The Seattle Times by Katie Walsh

Catherine Called Birdy is Dunham’s best writing and directing work yet; it’s an easy breezy, emotional good time, and an instant teen classic.

IndieWire by Kate Erbland

Catherine Called Birdy is so good, so raucous and wild and wise and witty, that it not only makes me eager to write in alliterative adjectives, but to reconsider my views on everything else she’s made in recent years. It’s wonderful.

The A.V. Club by Mark Keizer

Dunham has taken her oft-articulated concerns about women’s empowerment and self-determination and transported them to 13th-century England in Catherine Called Birdy, a charming, clever, and altogether delicious comeback film that redefines Dunham in a way that just recently seemed unlikely.

The Hollywood Reporter by Jourdain Searles

The real star of the show is Dunham, whose sharp dialogue and direction equips every actor with an acidic tongue and knowing gaze.

Variety by Peter Debruge

The movie wouldn’t have worked half as well had Dunham not discovered Ramsey, a “Game of Thrones” veteran soon to be seen in HBO’s “The Last of Us.” The young actor has a face one might find in a medieval Madonna portrait and a rowdy contemporary sensibility that makes her instantly relatable.

Arizona Republic by Kimi Robinson

Catherine Called Birdy is a reminder to let our spirits be free, never settle and keep loved ones close.

The New York Times by Amy Nicholson

Dunham prevails in convincing audiences that coming-of-age in a so-called simpler time was equally tumultuous, and crams the corners of her movie with images of other female characters discreetly seizing their own moments of satisfaction — glimpses of joys which realize that it’s in the margins of a medieval tale where the best stuff happens.

The Associated Press by Lindsey Bahr

Catherine Called Birdy is an unabashed delight for everyone. It just might run a little deeper for a certain age group.

Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt

A sly fairytale about a medieval tween that manages to be both cheeky and modern without losing its heart.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Alison Willmore

It doesn’t water down her voice. Instead, the self-lacerating, self-consumed filmmaker seems liberated by the act of adaptation, as though tempering her distinctive creative impulses gives her rein to make a movie that’s tender and more broadly crowd-pleasing, while still very much her own.

New York Post by Johnny Oleksinski

Dunham has made a really attractive and cohesive film, merging her modern, punky sensibilities with the dirt-and-stone drear of the time period.

Screen Rant by Mae Abdulbaki

Bolstered by a headstrong performance from Ramsey (who is best known as Lyanna Mormont from Game of Thrones), alongside a fantastic supporting cast, Catherine Called Birdy will be best enjoyed by a younger audience, though it’s still fun enough for viewers of all ages.

RogerEbert.com by Marya E. Gates

There is surely an audience for this kind of feel-good quote-un-quote feminism. But a book of such richness, with a heroine as complex as Birdy, deserves much more than this genial Renn Faire romp.

Screen Daily by Tim Grierson

Neither a broad farce nor a scathing evisceration of sexism (both then and now), Catherine Called Birdy ends up trapped in a dissatisfying middle ground between those two extremes, a tonal decision that results in only mild laughs and somewhat engaging characters.

TheWrap by Dan Callahan

Catherine Called Birdy only shows that dropping Dunham’s sensibility down into the Middle Ages results in a viewpoint that is suffocatingly small and unenlightening.