Colleen Hoover’s novels have officially become Hollywood’s most reliable adaptation pipeline. After the massive box office splash of It End With Us, studios realized that Hoover’s brand of high-stakes emotional intensity translates into major theater receipts. However, while fans and the BookTok community have been all-in from day one, critics have historically been a much tougher crowd to please—until now.

Early reception on Rotten Tomatoes for Reminders of Him (out today, March 13) is a genuine stop-the-press moment for the franchise. The latest adaptation currently holds the highest critics’ score of the three major Hoover films released to date. While the Tomatometer is a living document, the initial consensus suggests that this film has finally cracked the code for mainstream critical appeal, moving past the guilty pleasure label and into good-ish movie territory.

Reminders Of Him Rotten Tomatoes Score Explained

As with any opening weekend release, the Reminders of Him score reflects the reviews currently indexed by the site. Because we are at the start of the March 2026 release cycle, that percentage is subject to the usual opening week wobbles, but its starting position is undeniably strong. The comparison with previous Hoover projects is where the data gets interesting. Both It Ends With Us and Regretting You struggled to find a footing with professional reviewers, landing in “Rotten” territory despite overwhelming audience love.

It seems the CoHo formula—which thrives on raw, polarizing melodrama—is finally being refined into something critics can actually get behind. While It Ends With Us was a financial juggernaut, its mixed critical reception proved there was a gap between fan service and cinematic prestige. Regretting You saw that gap widen even further. Reminders Of Him is the first film to bridge that divide, projected to possibly even enter the fray as the first “Fresh” entry in the Hoover catalog.

Is Reminders Of Him Actually The Best Colleen Hoover Adaptation?

In a world of fast-paced spy thrillers designed to keep our rattlesnake brains on high alert, a Colleen Hoover film serves as the essential splash of oat milk in your coffee required to keep the balance. Reminders Of Him stands out as the perfect way to lean into what ScreenRant‘s Graeme Guttman calls “lizard brain” in his official review. Sometimes you don’t want a highbrow puzzle; you just want a movie that activates that primal urge to sit back, turn off your logic, and have a good cry.

Further buzz suggests that Reminders Of Him succeeds where its predecessors tripped up by finding a better balance between emotional sincerity and grounded drama. Critics are noting that director Vanessa Caswill manages to deliver the ugly cry moments Hoover is famous for without leaning too heavily into the glossy soap opera aesthetic that turned reviewers off in the past.

Much of that success is being credited to Maika Monroe. Her performance as Kenna Rowan—a woman fighting for a second chance after a prison sentence—anchors the film with a level of grit and vulnerability that feels elevated. Critics have praised her for bringing a restrained quality to the role, while her chemistry with Tyriq Withers (who plays Ledger) gives the romance a more authentic, lived-in feel than the high-drama pairings of previous films.

Even the harshest critics admit that Monroe’s performance brings a sense of gravitas that keeps the story from tipping into pure melodrama. Whether Reminders Of Him maintains its lead depends on the long tail of reviews. But for now, it holds a title no other CoHo movie can claim: it’s the one that finally made the critics feel something other than skepticism.

Release Date

March 5, 2026

Runtime

114 minutes

Director

Vanessa Caswill

Writers

Lauren Levine, Colleen Hoover

Producers

Gina Matthews, Colleen Hoover, Lauren Levine