On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 49% from 138 critics, with the site's consensuses reading, "Emma Roberts is bubbly and charming as Nancy Drew, the junior detective. But despite her best efforts, Nancy Drew still lacks excitement, surprise, and compelling secondary characters." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 53 out of 100, based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
