14 Muppets Films & TV Shows, Ranked by Critical Reviews

The only Muppets project listed as “Rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes, this ABC movie starring Ashanti and Queen Latifah gets a 30% score, with Film Threat’s Phill Hall deeming it “a disastrous failure.”

Gonzo goes on an interstellar search for his long-lost relatives in this movie, which has a Tomatometer score of 63%. Variety’s Joe Leydon called it a “modestly clever comedy.”

ABC’s mockumentary-style sitcom about the fictional talk show Up Late with Miss Piggy gets a 64% score. “It’s hard, after this encounter with the Muppets, to imagine any confidences from them, private or public, one wouldn’t want to hear more of,” observed The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz.

Disney+’s improvisational show — with sketches emulating game shows, cooking shows, and talk shows — lands a 69% score. “Muppets Now does have the glossy sheen of the kind of corporate product you would expect from Disney+,” wrote Thrillist’s Emily Zuckerman, “but it also doesn’t skimp on that anarchic Muppet spirit. It’s a joy delivery service.”

Disney’s famous puppets end up in one of the company’s famous theme-part attractions in this Disney+ special with a 71% score. “Will Arnett, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Taraji P. Henson seem to be having a grand time and make it all irresistible, as do the Muppets,” said Randy Myers of The Mercury News.

With Tim Curry playing Long John Silver, the Muppets seek pirate treasure in this big-screen Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation from director Brian Henson, Jim Henson’s son. It gets a 71% score, with the Hartford Courant’s Malcolm Johnson saying “moviegoers, old and young, will have fun aboard.”

Michael Caine played Ebenezer Scrooge opposite Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit in this Charles Dickens adaptation with a 77% Tomatometer score. “The humour, the terrific soundtrack, it all just seems to come together in a way you wouldn’t expect,” BBC.com’s Victoria Luxford raved.

The Muppets headed to London to investigate a jewel heist in the franchise’s second theatrical film, which boasts a 78% score. “I am always amazed at how the Muppets blend into the human world,” said the Evening Standard’s Alexander Walker. “Never has this been better done.”

The Muppets’ eighth and most recent theatrical film — starring Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, and Ty Burrell in a story about an international crime caper — has an 80% score. The Observer’s Mark Kermode said that the film “doesn’t skimp on good old-fashioned variety entertainment.”

In the first TV movie in the franchise, the gang try to save their Muppet Theater from a banker (Joan Cusack) threatening to foreclose on the property. The NBC production gets an 82% Tomatometer score, with Common Sense Media’s Barbara Schultz calling it a “classic story retold in [a] funny, touching Muppet romp.”

Kermit & Co. try to launch a Broadway show in this movie featuring cameos by Art Carney, Gregory Hines, and Liza Minelli, and a Tomatometer score of 84%. The Chicago Reader’s Reece Pendleton said the movie is “breezily fun and every bit as entertaining as its predecessors.”

The first of the Muppets’ theatrical films has an 88% score. In the movie, Kermit sets off on a cross-country trek to Hollywood, only to cross paths with a restaurateur (Charles Durning) wanting him to advertise frog legs. The movie “demonstrates once again that there’s always room in movies for unbridled amiability when it’s governed by intelligence and wit,” said The New York Times’ Vincent Canby.

Jason Segel co-wrote and starred alongside Amy Adams in this musical comedy film with a 95% score, in which their characters help the Muppets save their Muppet Theater from demolition. The New Yorker’s Bruce Diones observed that “the purity of the nostalgia turns this franchise film into a love letter to childhood.”

The original series, which ran in syndication in the States, has a sterling 100% Tomatometer score. The New Yorker’s Naomi Fry wrote that “bits of fabric and glue and yarn become complexly real” on the variety show, and The Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Idato called the show “charmingly unambitious and, as a result, absolutely brilliant.”