Critical reception

The film has earned mostly mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 49% of 117 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.8 out of 10. The film's consensus states: "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close has a story worth telling, but it deserves better than the treacly and pretentious treatment director Stephen Daldry gives it." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 44 based on 23 reviews.

Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was a "handsomely polished, thoughtfully wrapped Hollywood production about the national tragedy of 9/11 that seems to have forever redefined words like unthinkable, unforgivable, catastrophic". Peter Howell of the Toronto Star gave the film one out of four stars saying that " the film feels all wrong on every level, mistaking precociousness for perceptiveness and catastrophe for a cuddling session. It's calculated as Oscar bait, but the bait is poisoned by opportunism and feigned sensitivity". Meanwhile, in response to the negative criticism of the film in the mainstream media, Jake Horowitz of SceneCreek.com said that "It seems to be that it’s cool to hate this film." In response to the critics who have said that the film was exploitative, he added that "If Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close makes you cry, then you are crying at 9/11, you are crying at the story of one boy who’s family and who’s life was torn apart, and you are crying at an impeccably well made film. You aren’t crying because someone told you to, so get over yourself."