Avatar: The Way of Water

Director James Cameron in 2010

In 2006, Cameron said if Avatar (2009) were successful, he would consider making two sequels.[7] In 2010, he said the sequels would proceed as planned as a result of the film's widespread success.[8] The sequels were originally scheduled for release in December 2014 and 2015.[9] He included certain scenes in the first film for future story follow-ups.[7][11] Cameron planned to shoot the sequels back-to-back and to begin work "once the novel is nailed down".[54] He said the sequels would widen the universe while exploring other moons of Polyphemus.[55] The first sequel would focus on the ocean of Pandora and also feature more of the rainforest.[56] He intended to capture footage for the sequel at the bottom of the Mariana Trench using a deepwater submersible.[57] In 2011, Cameron said he was just starting to design the ocean ecosystem of Pandora and the other worlds to be included in the story. The storyline, although continuing the environmental theme of the first film, would not be "strident" since the film will concentrate on entertainment.[58] The sequels were confirmed as continuing to follow the characters of Jake and Neytiri in December 2009.[12] Cameron implied that the humans would return as the antagonists of the story.[59] In 2011, Cameron said he would film the sequels at a higher frame rate than the industry standard 24 frames per second, to add a heightened sense of reality.[60]

In 2013, Cameron announced that the sequels would be filmed in New Zealand, with performance capture to take place in 2014. An agreement with the New Zealand government required at least one world premiere to be held in Wellington and at least NZ$500 million (approximately US$410 million at December 2013 exchange rates) to be spent on production activity in New Zealand, including live-action filming and visual effects. The New Zealand government announced it would raise its baseline tax rebate for filmmaking from 15% to 20%, with 25% available to international productions in some cases and 40% for New Zealand productions (as defined by section 18 of the New Zealand Film Commission Act 1978).[61][62]

Cameron mentioned a possible third sequel for the first time in 2012; and was officially confirmed the following year.[63][64] Cameron was then looking to release Avatar 2 in 2015, but later that year, production was rescheduled for 2014, with the film to be released in December 2016, and to be followed by the two other sequels in 2017 and 2018.[65] By 2015, the scheduled release dates for the sequels were each delayed by another year, with the first sequel expected to be released in December 2017; this was due to the writing process, which Cameron called "a complex job".[66][67] The following month, Fox announced a further release delay.[68] In February 2016, production of the sequels was scheduled to begin in April 2016 in New Zealand.[69] In April 2016, Cameron announced at CinemaCon that there will be four Avatar sequels, all of which will be filmed simultaneously.[70]

New crew members include cinematographer Russell Carpenter, who worked with Cameron on True Lies (1994) and Titanic (1997), and Aashrita Kamath, who will act as art director on all four sequels.[71][72][73] Kirk Krack, founder of Performance Freediving International, worked as a free-diving trainer for the cast and crew for the underwater scenes.[74] Several creatures that were first introduced in the Walt Disney World theme park attraction Avatar Flight of Passage were featured in the film.[75]

In 2019, after several media outlets shared rumors of potential titles for the Avatar sequels, including the name Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron confirmed that the titles mentioned were "among titles that are in consideration" but had not been finalized at the time.[76]

In 2022, Cameron said that about ten minutes of "gunplay action" were cut from the film as he was no longer inclined to "fetishize the gun", although he is known as an "action filmmaker".[77]

In 2012, Cameron said the sequels were being written as "separate stories that have an overall arc inclusive of the first film", with the second having a clear conclusion instead of a cliffhanger to the next film. Screenwriters were also announced: Josh Friedman for the first, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver for the second, and Shane Salerno for the third.[65] However, Friedman later clarified and said Jaffa and Silver were writing the first of the four sequels and he was writing the second.[78] In April 2014, Cameron expected to finish the (then) three scripts within six weeks, stating that all three sequels would be in production simultaneously and were still slated for December 2016 to 2018 releases.[79][80] He said although Friedman, Jaffa and Silver, and Salerno are each co-writing one sequel with him, they at first worked together on all three scripts: "I didn't assign each writer which film they were going to work on until the last day. I knew if I assigned them their scripts ahead of time, they'd tune out every time we were talking about the other movie."[65][81][82][18][78][83] Cameron added that they had "worked out every beat of the story across all three films so it all connects as one, sort of, three-film saga", a creative process that was inspired by his experiences in the writing room of his television series Dark Angel.[84] The writing took longer than expected, forcing Cameron to delay the release of the films further in 2015.[66]

He spent a year writing the script for the first sequel titled Avatar: The High Ground, a 130-page treatment and then threw it out and started over because "it didn't go enough into the unexpected," which is one of the critical elements about sequels, according to Cameron. At one point, he threatened to fire his writers because they would only focus on the new stories, rather than first figuring out what made the original movie a success.[85][86] In December 2015, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly Cameron said: "I'm in the process of doing another pass through all three scripts [...] Just refining. That's in parallel with the design process. The design process is very mature at this point. We've been designing for about a year and a half. All the characters, settings and creatures are all pretty much [set]."[87] On February 11, 2017, Cameron announced that the writing of all four sequels was complete.[88] In a November 26 interview the same year, he estimated that the scripts had taken four years to write overall.[53] One element in The High Ground, showing an outer space battle between Na'vi, humans and spaceships was cut; this was later used in the prequel novel of the same name. Cameron cited the omission of the sequel's core aspects, which were insufficient, as reasons for the removal.[89][90]

Discussing the character of Tuk in a February 2019 interview, Cameron mentioned that she was eight years old, and that the film would feature a scene between Jake and Neytiri taking place from Tuk's perspective: "There's a three-page argument scene between Jake and Neytiri, a marital dispute, very, very critical to the storyline. I wound up shooting it all from the point of view of the 8-year-old hiding under the structure and peeking in. Having gone through the experience with [Sam Worthington] on Avatar, I now knew how to write the Jake character going forward across the emotional rollercoaster of the next four movies."[40][91] Cameron said the film addresses the implications of Jake and Neytiri becoming parents in the time that elapsed since the first film.[92] He said:

Becoming a parent changes so much of your behavior and your value system...What we saw in the first film were people who were fearless. Jake would throw himself off his ikran onto a leonopteryx (creatures featured in Avatar) but is a father of four going do that?...He's trying to keep his kids alive and trying to adjust his own life. Is he still a warrior? Are these young boys who are 14, 15, 16, coming up, getting all excited about wanting to go to war and fight for their people and for their land? How's [Jake] going to be a hypocrite and hold them back when he has to go do it?[92]

In a December 2019 interview, Lang said his character was always meant to return in the sequels, as Cameron had shared with him "that Quaritch had a future" while shooting the original film.[93]

Producer Landau, Worthington, Saldaña, Cameron, Weaver and Lang promoting the film in Tokyo

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña were confirmed in January 2010 to have signed on to reprise their roles in the sequels.[11] Later that year, Cameron confirmed that both Weaver and Stephen Lang would return despite the demise of their characters.[18][15] Cameron also said Weaver would be featured in all three sequels (the fourth one was not planned at the time), and that her character, Grace Augustine, would be alive.[16] In March 2015, however, Weaver said that she will play a new character in the next film.[6] Cameron confirmed in 2010 that Lang would return as Quaritch in the first three sequels, stating, "I'm not going to say exactly how we're bringing him back, but it's a science fiction story, after all. His character will evolve into really unexpected places across the arc of our new three-film saga."[18][19] In September 2015, Michelle Rodriguez said unlike Weaver and Lang, whose characters had also died in the first film, she would not return in Avatar 2.[94]

Several new cast announcements were made in 2017, with Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder and Matt Gerald all confirmed to return from the first film.[31][32][29][30] Additionally, Cliff Curtis joined the cast as Tonowari, the leader of the Na'vi reef people clan of Metkayina.[27][29] On September 23, 2017, child actor Filip Geljo was revealed to have been signed in an undisclosed role.[95] On September 27, seven child actors were confirmed as a part of the main cast including Geljo: Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton and Trinity Bliss as Jake and Neytiri's children; Geljo, Bailey Bass and Duane Evans Jr. as members of the Metkayina (together with Curtis); and Jack Champion, the only one to perform in live action, as a human born on Pandora.[36][37] Cameron later said the child cast had been trained for six months to prepare for the underwater scenes filmed in performance capture, and that they now could all hold their breath "in the two- to four-minute range", even then-seven-year-old Trinity Bliss, and were now "all perfectly capable of acting underwater, very calmly while holding their breath".[96][97]

On October 3, 2017, it was reported that Winslet, who starred in Cameron's Titanic, had joined the cast of Avatar 2, and possibly its sequels. Cameron commented: "Kate and I had been looking for something to do together for 20 years, since our collaboration on Titanic, which was one of the most rewarding of my career", and added that her character was named Ronal.[22][98][23] When asked by ComicBook.com on her reasons to return to work with Cameron, Winslet said he just asked her to play Ronal and she accepted out of a combination of her love for the first Avatar film, an attraction to the well-written and strong female role she was offered, a love for being on the water and to work with Cameron and the film's cast.[99] Although the nature of her character was originally unknown, the following month Cameron said Ronal was "part of the Sea People, the reef people", in reference to the Na'vi clan of Metkayina, making Avatar 2 Winslet's first role via performance capture, or motion capture altogether, which she was looking forward to; since she insisted on performing all of her character's movements herself, she, like the child cast, had to learn free diving for the film.[53][24] Winslet, who had been notoriously reluctant about working with Cameron again because of the complicated situations he puts his actors in for their scenes, said Cameron proposed the role to her in July 2017 when he came to help her and their fellow Titanic collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio at a fundraiser in France, sending her the scripts shortly after.[24] She commented that her role was "relatively small comparative to the lengthy shoot", as she would only have one month of shootings, but also "a pivotal character in the ongoing story".[24]

On October 13, 2017, it was announced that Giovanni Ribisi would reprise his role of Parker Selfridge from the first film, in all four upcoming Avatar films.[43] On January 25, 2018, Dileep Rao was confirmed to return as Dr. Max Patel. A year later, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell and Jemaine Clement joined the cast in live-action roles.[33][34][35] Marc Maron also auditioned for Clement's part.[100] Edward Norton turned down an undisclosed role in Avatar 2, due to only being interested in playing a Na'vi, which his proposed character was not.[101] Joel David Moore's then infant son, Oliver, filmed a brief cameo as an infant Neteyam.[39]

Avatar: The Way of Water entered production and started preliminary shooting on August 15, 2017, with Manhattan Beach, California, as the main shooting location.[102] Principal photography began on September 25, 2017, on a $350–$460 million budget; the film is one of the most expensive films ever made.[2][3][103] It was simultaneously filmed with Avatar 3 (2024).[104] As Weaver later revealed in November, filming had to be moved around to allow her to film a cameo appearance in the series eight finale of Doc Martin (2004–present).[105]

On November 23, Cameron said the crew had been undergoing tests with the cast for the last month to film underwater scenes in performance capture, and that they succeeded in filming the first of those on November 14, featuring six of their seven main child actors, including Trinity Bliss.[53] He said "we're getting really good data, beautiful character motion and great facial performance capture. We've basically cracked the code".[96][97] The cast and crew did not use scuba sets as "air bubbles might interfere with the accuracy of the sensors". Another problem with underwater scenes was how the infrared light used in performance capture was not registered by the camera sensors as it was absorbed by the water, and so UV-light had to be used instead. Two separate performance capture systems were made; one used underwater, and another above the water, which had to work in sync with one another.[106] Cameron said that tests would last until January 2018, as "we're still working in our small test tank. We graduate to our big tank in January".[96] It was "a dialogue scene", as according to Cameron, the characters communicate via "a kind of a sign language".[53] The underwater fight scene between Worthington and Lang was difficult, based on their interviews. Worthington considered this a risky option because doing choke-outs can cause drowning. Overseen by a safety team during the shoot, the actors ensured their survival.[49][107]

On April 30, 2018, Winslet had "just a couple days" of shooting left to do.[108] While filming an underwater scene, Winslet held her breath for over seven minutes, breaking the record for longest breath held while shooting a film scene underwater, a record previously held by Tom Cruise for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015).[14] In May 2018, Saldaña said filming was "kind of only halfway done" and that the crew is "about [to finish] motion capture production on the [second and third] movies, and then after that, they go straight into pre-production for the live-action part that would shoot for six months in New Zealand."[109] Saldaña finished shooting her scenes on June 8, for both Avatar 2 and its sequel, while Cameron said around the same time that 130 days of performance capture had been shot.[25][26] On November 14, 2018, Cameron announced filming with the principal performance capture cast had been completed.[21]

Part of the movie was shot at 24 frames per second, but many fast scenes were filmed at 48 frames per second. This allows fast objects still to be clearly visible when moving, but it was also said that too detailed a view sometimes causes the viewer to see playing actors rather than story characters. The projector in the movie hall runs at 48 frames per second, for the 24 fps sections frames are duplicated.[110] To avoid the soap opera effect, Lightstorm Entertainment hired Pixelworks in 2020, which used their TrueCut Motion software to create "motion grading", a tool that ensure a movie keep its theatrical appearance.[111]

In February 2019, Landau said live-action filming for Avatar 2 and 3 would commence in New Zealand in the spring of 2019.[112] Cameron confirmed later the same month that they had "only wrapped for [the motion capture parts]. Now, that is the vast majority of the characters and it is the vast majority of the running time of the film[s]. But that pesky little live action component is going to cost me five months of my life across the two movies."[113] Filming for 2019 concluded on November 29, to resume the following year in New Zealand.[114][115][116]

On March 17, 2020, Landau announced that the filming of the Avatar sequel films in New Zealand had been postponed indefinitely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also confirmed that production would remain in Los Angeles.[117] However, virtual production continued in Manhattan Beach, California while visual effects continued at Weta Digital in Wellington.[118] In early May, health and safety production protocols had been endorsed by the New Zealand government, allowing filming to resume in the country.[119]

On June 1, 2020, Landau posted a picture of himself and Cameron on Instagram, showing that they had returned to New Zealand to resume filming. After their arrival, Cameron and 55 other crew members who had traveled to New Zealand started a 2-week government-supervised isolation period at a hotel in Wellington before they would resume filming. This would make Avatar 2 and 3 the first major Hollywood blockbusters to resume production after postponing filming due to the pandemic.[120][121][122][123] On June 16, 2020, Cameron resumed filming and Landau posted a photo of his crew on Instagram filming the production.[124][125] The New Zealand production hired 46 New Zealand cast members including Cliff Curtis (Tonowari) and Duane Evans Jr. (Roxto), 114 local stunt artists, almost 800 extras, and 36 apprentices and interns.[126][127] In September 2020, Cameron confirmed that live action filming in New Zealand had been completed, therefore completing the shooting of the film altogether after over three years; he estimated Avatar 3 to be "95%" completed, due to having live-action parts yet to be filmed outside of New Zealand.[128][129][130]

In July 2022, the New Zealand Film Commission disclosed that the Avatar sequels had received over NZ$140 million worth of public funding through the country's Screen Production Grant. By comparison, The Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014) had received NZ$161 million in film subsidies. While ACT party deputy leader Brooke van Velden criticised the Government's film subsidy programme for allegedly taking public funding from other areas, the Economic Development and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash argued that New Zealand's film subsidies for major Hollywood products brought much needed overseas investment and jobs to the New Zealand film industry.[131]

On July 31, 2017, it was announced that Wētā FX had commenced work on the Avatar sequels.[134] The film heavily features underwater scenes, actually filmed underwater with the cast in performance capture.[96][97] Blending underwater filming and performance capture being a feature never accomplished before, it took the team a year and a half to develop a new motion capture system.[133][132] In December 2022, Wētā FX's VFX producer David Conley describe Avatar 2 as the biggest visual effects project that the company had ever undertaken, totalling nearly 3.3 billion thread powers. To cope with the huge amount of data, Wētā used the services of cloud storage company Amazon Web Services.[135]

In November 2015, Landau said Avatar 2 would have a number of major technological improvements since the first movie. A lot more of the lighting work on the virtual production stage could be done during production instead of post-production, and like Alita: Battle Angel (2019), which is produced and co-written by Cameron, the crew can use two lightweight HD head cams to record the actors' facial performance. In addition they also used two digital puppets instead of just one; one that is an accurate copy of the real actor, and another that is the actor's character, allowing the team to re-target one onto the other to make it as accurate as possible.[136][137]

Cameron said there was a possibility that the film could be shown in "glasses-free 3D", along with the sequels.[138][139] But he later disagreed with these rumors and did not think the technology would be there yet.[140]

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) also returned to assist the VFX for the film after doing so with Weta for the final battle of the first film. ILM assisted in delivering 48 one-off VFX shots for the film's opening scenes.[141][142]

The film was completed on November 23, 2022.[143]

In July 2022, Empire revealed the runtime was "around three hours" at that stage in production.[144] In November 2022, the film's runtime was revealed to be 192 minutes (three hours and twelve minutes).[1] In the Empire interview, Cameron said: "I don't want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours... I've watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row. Here's the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: it's okay to get up and go pee."[145][146]

Avatar: The Way of Water is the second Disney-distributed film and the second 20th Century Studios film, after Avengers: Endgame and Titanic respectively, to exceed three hours in length.[147]

Avatar: The Way of Water was released for digital download on March 28, 2023. It contains behind-the-scenes featurettes.[206] The film was released on June 7, 2023, on Disney+ and Max.[207][208] Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (under the 20th Century Studios label) distributed Avatar: The Way of Water on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD on June 20, 2023.[209]

Theater attendees watching the film in 3D in Barcelona

Avatar: The Way of Water grossed $684.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $1.636 billion in other territories, for a worldwide total of $2.320 billion.[4][5] It had a worldwide opening of $441.7 million, the eleventh-biggest of all time, and the third largest in the COVID-19 pandemic era, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($601 million) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($452.4 million). IMAX accounted for $48.8 million, the second-highest global weekend ever for a film released in IMAX cinemas.[210][211] It is the highest-grossing film of 2022, the third-highest-grossing film of all time,[212][213] and the highest-grossing film of the pandemic era.[214]

It is the fourth film to reach the $1 billion milestone in the pandemic era after Spider-Man: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion, as well as the sixth-fastest overall to reach the milestone at 14 days.[215][216] It crossed the $2 billion milestone on January 22, becoming the first film in the pandemic era and the sixth in history to reach the milestone. It is also the second-fastest to gross over $2 billion, reaching the milestone in 40 days.[217][218] Deadline Hollywood calculated the film's net profit as $531.7 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it first on their list of 2022's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".[219]

By December 14, 2022, prior to the film's release in the United States and Canada, Boxoffice Pro projected an opening weekend of $145–179 million, and a total final gross of $574–803 million.[220] The film made $53.2 million on its first day, including $17 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to a $134.1 million weekend, nearly double the original's opening of $77 million, but coming in below expectations while finishing first at the box office.[221][222] Deadline Hollywood and Variety wrote that strong audience exit scores, the small day-to-day drop, limited competition from other films and the upcoming Christmas holiday all indicated likely strong legs at the box office.[3][223]

The film made $63.3 million in its second weekend, a drop of 53%,[224] and $95.6 million over the four-day Christmas weekend, remaining atop the box office.[225] Box office analysts partially attributed the December 2022 North American winter storm for the drop.[226][227] In the third weekend, it grossed $67.4 million for an increase of 6%, and also grossed $88.8 million through the four-day New Year weekend,[228][229] while becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2022 in the region.[230] It remained the highest-grossing film at the box office throughout its first seven weekends of release, the highest number of consecutive weekends for any film since the original Avatar.[231][232] It is also the seventh-highest-grossing film of all time in the US and Canada.[233]

On the release day of Avatar: The Way of Water, Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Culture Media estimated that the film would make $357 million (¥2.5 billion) and $100 million in its opening weekend.[234] It grossed $57 million in the first week in China, according to Artisan Gateway. This included a gross of $51.3 million during the weekend. The box-office gross of the film was impacted by the recent surge in COVID-19 infections in the country. IMAX meanwhile reported that the film marked its best weekend ever in China, with a $15.8 million opening.[235] In the second weekend, the film grossed $25.9 million, for a drop of 55%,[236] and an increase of 42% during the New Year weekend with $36.9 million.[237] Variety predicted that it would continue to dominate the region due to lack of titles offering it competition.[238][239]

Outside the US and Canada, the film grossed $307.6 million in 52 countries in its first week of release. The largest openings for the film by the end of the week were in China ($56.8 million), South Korea ($24.9 million), France ($21.7 million), Germany ($19.4 million) and India ($19.2 million).[210][211] In the second weekend, it grossed $168.6 million for a drop of 42%.[240] In the third weekend, it grossed $186.7 million, an increase of 6% from the previous weekend.[241] In the fourth weekend, it grossed $132.6 million for a drop of 30%, while becoming the highest-grossing film of the pandemic era outside the US and Canada.[242] The five largest-running total countries by February 26, 2023, are China ($249.8 million), France ($148.3 million), Germany ($138.3 million), South Korea ($105 million) and the United Kingdom ($91 million). It became the highest-grossing film of all time in twenty box office territories, including Germany, France, Austria, Turkey and New Zealand.[243][244][245][246]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 76% of 436 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Narratively, it might be fairly standard stuff—but visually speaking, Avatar: The Way of Water is a stunningly immersive experience."[247] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 68 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[248] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, the same as the first Avatar, while PostTrak reported 91% of audience members gave the film a positive score, with 82% saying they would definitely recommend it.[3]

Positive reviews focused on the visual spectacle of the film, and advocated seeing it in as large a format as possible.[10][249] Chicago-Sun Times critic Richard Roeper gave the film a rating of three and a half out of four stars, highlighting the film's visuals as "some of the most dazzling, vibrant, and gorgeous images ever seen on screen."[250] Variety critic Owen Gleiberman praised the film as a "dizzyingly spectacular sequel" with "miraculously sustained" combat sequences, "scenes that will make your eyes pop, your head spin and your soul race" and "state-of-the-art 3D (never in-your-face, just images that look and feel sculpted) [that] makes the film's every underwater glide feel as experiential as one that you're literally on." On the other hand, Gleiberman felt that the story is "basic" with a "string of serviceable clichés," "bare-bones dialogue" and little dimensionality to the characters.[251] The Atlantic critic David Sims said that the film will wow audiences and exhibit "new delights...in the alien world of Pandora" while noting that the film gets off to a slow start that is "busy with plot details as the film updates the audience on the past decade-plus of Pandoran life."[252] Science writer Darren Naish praised the creature design and detailed alien world, saying the series would remain a "mainstay of discussions in creature design and speculative biology for some time yet".[253]

Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang hailed Cameron as "one of the few Hollywood visionaries who actually merits that much-abused term" and said the film will "stun most of his naysayers into silence", while also praising the film's tenderness and sentimentality.[254] Entertainment Weekly critic Leah Greenblatt summarized her review of The Way of Water saying that it "created its own whole-cloth reality, a meticulous world-building as astonishing and enveloping as anything we've ever seen on screen — until that crown is passed, inevitably, in December 2024, the projected release date for Avatar 3."[255]

However, some critics felt that the film was excessively long, and that the story was not substantial enough to justify the length.[10] The New Yorker critic Anthony Lane opined: "The film is more than three hours long, some of it dangerously close to dawdling; not until the final third does Cameron apply the whip and remind us that, in the choreographing of action sequences, he remains unsurpassed."[256] The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw was critical of the "scathingly bland plot" and noted that, despite the shift in setting, "there isn't a single interesting visual image".[257]

San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Mick LaSalle called it "a one-hour story rattling around in a 192-minute bag," while acknowledging that "it looks pretty good," incorporating "one of the best uses of 3-D to date, with visuals that seem to have been conceived in three dimensions."[258] The Telegraph critic Robbie Collin said that the film "has no plot, no stakes and atrocious dialogue" and that "for all its world-building sprawl, The Way of Water is a horizon-narrowing experience – the sad sight of a great filmmaker reversing up a creative cul-de-sac."[259]

The Toronto Star commented that the film was poorly received by some indigenous peoples in Canada, being viewed as trying to portray the colonial struggles of an indigenous population, with reviewer Drew Hayden Taylor noting: "It's also rather conventional in its own way and somewhat boring. Predictable. I've been involved in crooked card games with a less foreseeable storyline."[260]

At the 95th Academy Awards, Avatar: The Way of Water received nominations for Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Production Design; and won Best Visual Effects.[261] The film's other nominations include two Annie Awards (winning both),[262] two British Academy Film Awards (winning one),[263] five Critics' Choice Movie Awards (winning one),[264] and two Golden Globe Awards.[265] It was named one of the ten best films of 2022 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.[266][267]