The film's South by Southwest premiere was met with positive reviews. Henry Barnes of The Guardian stated that Neighbors was "extremely funny", praised the chemistry between Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne, and complimented the performances of Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. However, he criticized the "strangely blank" performance of Zac Efron, as well as the film's pacing.^[1] Andrew Barker of Variety disagreed with Barnes, calling Efron's performance "credible and intriguing", but opined that there were many "missed marks".^[2] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter credited Byrne with stealing her scenes, as well as the performance of Lisa Kudrow. He criticized Mintz-Plasse's character as a "one-joke role", but found the film to be "[a]n uproarious and hugely commercial vision of intergenerational warfare".^[3] Drew Taylor of Indiewire lauded the film, calling it "one of the funniest, most visually inventive studio comedies in recent memory".^[4]

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 73% rating, with an average score of 6.3/10, based on reviews from 198 critics. The site's consensus states: "With plenty of bawdy humor evenly spread between its well-matched stars, Neighbors earns its R rating—and filmgoers' laughs."^[5] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 68, based on 45 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[6] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a B rating on an A+ to F scale.^[7]

Theatrical positive:

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^[17] (Associated Press writer)

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Theatrical mixed:

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Theatrical negative:

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