Avatar: Fire and Ash has entered the record books for both the franchise and director James Cameron, but not for the reason many fans expected. The third film in Cameron’s long-running science fiction series about life on Pandora follows the Sully family once again and arrives with major anticipation. Its release is considered such a major entertainment event that it has drawn other studios to schedule major trailer debuts alongside it, including previews for Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and four separate trailers for Avengers: Doomsday.
Early screenings were held in the first week of December, with the review embargo lifted on December 16, 2025, exactly three years after the release of Avatar: The Way of Water. While early reactions suggested a positive response, the full set of published reviews tells a different story. The new entry ranks lower than both previous Avatar films and any other Cameron-directed movie to date.
At present, Avatar: Fire and Ash holds a 68% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 263 reviews and a 61 on Metacritic. For comparison, Avatar: The Way of Water still maintains a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 67 on Metacritic. The original Avatar from 2009 remains the strongest-reviewed film in the series with an 81% Fresh rating and an 83 score on Metacritic.
As more reviews continue to appear, the third film’s numbers may slip below the fresh threshold. If that happens, it could become Cameron’s first film to fall into the “Rotten” category. For now, it remains barely above that line.
The Way of Water also opened with mixed critical reactions but went on to become the top-grossing movie of 2022 and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. That history suggests Cameron’s films often attract audiences regardless of early reviews. Still, the fact that Fire and Ash now stands as the lowest-rated movie of his career is not the record that either Cameron or Disney wanted to see. Previously, the lowest-rated titles in his filmography were The Abyss and Avatar: The Way of Water, both holding 76% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Even with the lower critical reception, Cameron remains without a feature film officially graded as “Rotten” by the site. Whether Avatar: Fire and Ash can maintain that status as more critics weigh in remains to be seen.
***
English (US) · 