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Lisa Rice (Crosswalk) says it's "a movie with everything:drama, action, romance, history, and miracles—a sure bet to edge out the shallow, same old 'pretend-Christmas' offerings."

Michael Brunk (Past the Popcorn) says, "[I]t's not actually a bad movie. It's just not as good as it could have, or perhaps should have, been."

Sister Rose Pacatte, F.S.P. (St. Anthony Messenger) says Mike Rich's script "reaches inside the minds and hearts of the characters and makes them real for us. The Magi provide some comic relief. The story of Jesus' birth is layered with meaning so that the youngest child to the wisest of adults can experience Christmas anew. … This film is certain to be a classic for all Christians, even though the nativity scene … looks as if it was lifted off a Christmas card. A little more subtlety would have been my preference."

Cliff Vaughn (Ethics Daily) says, "[T]he movie's best scenes involve [Mary] and Joseph trying to make sense of their circumstances." He also raves about Isaac's performance as Joseph: "Isaac owns the movie. Saying very little, the Juilliard graduate brilliantly expresses what must surely have been Joseph's doubt, anger and fear. [He] provides Christ-like traits before, during and after the film's manger climax."

Mainstream critics are turning in mixed reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes, an average of 107 reviews comes up with a "rotten" rating of 41 percent (anything less than 60 percent is deemed rotten). But the "Cream of the Crop" reviews—notable critics from North America's top media outlets—are at 58 percent, just shy of the "fresh" rating.

A.O. Scott of The New York Times says the film "sticks to the familiar details of the narrative and dramatizes them with sincerity and good taste. There are no flights of actorly or cinematic bravura—though all of the performances are credible, and some better than that—and very few big, showy, epic gestures. Rather than trying to reinterpret or modernize a well-known, cherished story, the filmmakers have rendered it with a quiet, unassuming professionalism."

But Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly says, "The movie industry is eager to beckon and serve Christian viewers, yet as long as it thinks of those viewers as another market slice, a demo, it may end up pandering to them with cautious and stultifying reverence. The Nativity Story is a film of tame picture-book sincerity, but that's not the same thing as devotion. The movie is too tepid to feel, or see, the light."

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