SNL50: The Anniversary Special

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SNL50: The Anniversary Special

2025

2h 32m

Comedy

Entertainment

Music

Variety

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Popcornmeter

72%

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18 Reviews

67%

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50+ Ratings

Live from New York, it's one night 50 years in the making. Celebrate the incredible 50th anniversary of the award-winning, record-breaking, history-making series with legendary stars, live musical performances and iconic sketches.

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Liam Mathews

TheWrap

Overall, “SNL50” was a messy, excessive, self-satisfied special, but it was the perfect way to mark the milestone.

Feb 19, 2025

Full Review

Judy Berman

TIME Magazine

The choice to favor new sketches over montages and other clips, this time, was smart; it’s not like old episodes of SNL are hard to find anymore.

Feb 18, 2025

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Amber Dowling

Globe and Mail

Failed to bring the nostalgia or highlight the true legacy of [SNL]. But if it was trying to deliver a more polished, celebrity-filled afterparty that made you forget the real world for a few brief hours, I suppose it hit the mark.

Feb 18, 2025

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Garrett Martin

Paste Magazine

SNL50: The Anniversary Special didn’t feel all that special. It felt like business as usual for a show that already congratulates itself as often as it possibly can, with only a few highlights coming close to the show’s rep as a comedy institution.

Rated: 6/10

Feb 18, 2025

Full Review

Dustin Rowles

Pajiba

It’s almost exactly what one might expect from a 50th Anniversary special: It leans hard on the familiar, shoehorns a lot of celebrities into every sketch, and is occasionally very funny and always nostalgic.

Rated: 6.47/10

Feb 18, 2025

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Chris DeVille

The Ringer

The special was at its best when it focused less on shtick and more on the kind of pure magnetism that can’t be taught.

Feb 18, 2025

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Audience Member

A couple of laughs. Poor writing.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/24/25

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Dallas H

Watching SNL 50 is like listening to a Greatest Hits album from a big-name band. A few of the most recognizable hits appeared in this anniversary episode. At the same time, plenty of fan favorites were left out due to time constraints. I still had fun watching the show.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/23/25

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Birithivy Y

SNL50: The Anniversary Special - 8/10. First of all: where the hell is Bill Hader? How was he not in this as much as he should’ve!? For me, SNL is funny, but I feel like it has some good highs and some really unfunny lows. There’s some fun nostalgic lookbacks in this special, bringing back old characters and sketches which work for the most part. Seeing some of the old cast members and guests coming back to help celebrate was kind of cool, and seeing them acknowledge a lot of the SNL history (good and bad) was a nice touch. For mega fans, this is gold. But for casual comedy fans, this is decent but wouldn’t say really encapsulates the comedy that SNL help make over the years.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/22/25

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Dave B

The normal SNL formula is having a pre-show with a live audience that is 30 minutes too long (120 minutes), then go to the on-air version which takes out the 30 minutes of material which did not do well. Here, it seems the formula was to have a 180-minute live show (twice as long as normal), without the pre-show review. More miss than hit, with a couple of very funny moments and other moments that seemed entirely misfired for a 50th anniversary prime-time special. The show felt quickly thrown together and was not kid friendly. The best skit moment was Eddie Murphy playing Tracy Morgan, with Tracy Morgan next to him. The worst was Hanks playing the Maga guy on the same skit. Yes, De Niro, you hate Maga, we get it, there was no reason to bring it up (expressly or by implication) in a Debbie Downer skit. It was that uneven and sometimes cringy. Many recent episodes have been much better.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/20/25

Full Review

Audience Member

For the most part most of the skits landed and for the ones that didn't it was okay. All the guests and musical performers were fantastic and John Mulaney, Fred Armisen and of course Kate McKinnon steal the show. Great jokes, great memories, a fantastic tribute.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/20/25

Full Review

Greg F

I enjoyed it. Music wasn't my taste. I will say I had no idea it was going to be that long. The live sketches were a breath of fresh air.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/19/25

Full Review

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Synopsis

Live from New York, it's one night 50 years in the making. Celebrate the incredible 50th anniversary of the award-winning, record-breaking, history-making series with legendary stars, live musical performances and iconic sketches.

Producer: Steve Higgins, Erik Kenward
Distributor: NBC
Production Co: Broadway Video
Genre: Comedy, Entertainment, Music, Variety
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 16, 2025
Runtime: 2h 32m

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