The fourth season of the American comedy-drama television series The Bear premiered with all 10 episodes on June 25, 2025, on FX on Hulu. Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo returned as showrunners for the season. In March 2024, FX renewed The Bear for a fourth season, which began filming with the third season in February 2024, and was completed in early 2025.
Jeremy Allen White reprised his role as Carmy Berzatto, an award-winning chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago to manage the chaotic kitchen at his deceased brother's sandwich shop.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Lionel Boyce, Liza Colón-Zayas, Abby Elliott, Matty Matheson, and Edwin Lee Gibson also returned from the previous season as top-billed cast. Oliver Platt, Corey Hendrix, Jon Bernthal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Robert Townsend, Gillian Jacobs, Will Poulter, and Sarah Ramos reprised their recurring roles. Rob Reiner guest-starred as business consultant Albert Schnur in what would become his final television role.
The season premiered to positive reviews from critics, though reception was more muted than prior seasons. Edebiri and Boyce co-wrote a critically acclaimed Sydney-centric episode and performances by Edebiri, White, and Curtis again received positive attention. The season finale was a unique black-box-theater-style bottle episode featuring only four key members of main cast.
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In March 2024, preceding the release of the third season, it was announced that FX had secretly renewed The Bear for a fourth season. The season was announced to be filming back-to-back with the third season.
Cast members Ayo Edebiri and Lionel Boyce co-wrote an episode in the fourth season, marking both their writing debuts on the series. Edebiri previously directed the third season's "Napkins".
Parts of the fourth season were filmed with the third season, beginning in February 2024, with production set to restart in 2025. John Landgraf, chairman of FX Networks, commented about the filming after the 2024 Emmys, saying "We finished most of it. We haven't finished all of it, but we finished most of it, and it will be ready same time next year." Landgraf had stated that the combined filming schedule had resulted in around sixteen and a half episodes completed between the two seasons. Main star Jeremy Allen White stated in an interview with Esquire UK that filming was expected to take place in February or March 2025. Filming took place in Chicago, and wrapped in early 2025.
Cinematographer Andrew Wedhe told Another magazine that while the early visual influences on the series came from directors like Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Soderbergh, by seasons three and four there was an increasing Chef's Table influence on the way they shot the show. He used the same Arri Alexa LF and Panavision H-series lenses that were used to shoot the first three seasons, but changed the lighting design to achieve a new look.
Regarding the personal style of Sydney Adamu in season four, according to costume designer Courtney Wheeler, "I think, as a Black woman, moving through the spaces [Sydney] does where she's the only person who looks like her, she's always had to bring a part of herself and her opinion when she could. Even if she's had to stay silent, she's making sure that she stays true to herself and what she wears. This season, we have a lot of Black American-based T-shirts. She's wearing a Negro league sweatshirt in one of the episodes. She has the Smithsonian one. She's just someone who likes to collect, whether through her father or her mother, who passed away. I think clothes help ground her and convey her point of view."
Britain's Far Out Magazine applauded the use of music in season four, which "continued [The Bears] great run of impeccable songs, but this time leaned in on itself to deliver the emotional punch, using recurring and revitalized songs to make its point. 'I Got You Babe' features twice and showcases the energy of the season as the crew...begin to gel, listen to one another, and, in general, find love and comfort. Love songs, all from the alternative space, litter the soundtrack: Cher, the Ramones, Elton John, and more." Time Out noted that the Ronettes was the music group with the most songs featured in season four: "The group's vocal harmonies are sprinkled over three episodes, featuring their quintessential hits 'Baby, I Love You', '(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up' and 'Walking in the Rain'."
The producers were in less need of the show's composers, Johnny Iguana and Jeffrey Qaiyum, in season four, because their budget had increased. According to Iguana in June 2025, "If they want to have an English Beat song in one of their scenes now, they're just gonna purchase it and not ask us to make a replica. If you catch the last season and especially this coming season, there's very little original scoring. When you've got money to spend for a famous song, that's what you're gonna do."
The fourth season of The Bear premiered on June 25, 2025, on Hulu and Disney+.
On Rotten Tomatoes, 85% of 85 critics gave the fourth season a positive review. The website's critics consensus reads, "After simmering for too long, The Bears fourth season finally turns the heat back up with a renewed sense of urgency, serving a rich meal despite tiresome wait times between courses." Metacritic assigned it a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 based on 40 reviews. It is the lowest-rated season of the series on either site.
Allison Herman of Variety called the season a "marked improvement" over the third, but added that "'better' isn't quite the same as 'enough to make the payoff worth the slog'." She praised the season's renewed focus on supporting characters neglected in the previous season, but wrote, "Season 4 can feel less like a cohesive statement in its own right than a sort of do-over, circling back to fill in gaps and pick up pieces that should've been addressed by now." Judy Berman of Time, meanwhile, found the season "just as inert" as the third, calling it "formless" and criticizing its emphasis on "quiet solo scenes" and "earnest two-handers" that feel "remarkably similar to one another". She lamented the series' overall shift from "humor and wonder and angst" to "relentless solemnity" in the third and fourth seasons. Commenting on the season finale, Berman called Ayo Edebiri's "understated performance" as Sydney "a highlight of The Bears fourth season." Liam Matthews of TheWrap praised season 4's performances and named the fourth and seventh episodes as standouts, but similarly criticized the story as shapeless and lacking in payoff, writing, "its overemphasis on character and vibe at the expense of narrative momentum leaves it repetitive and flabby." Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair praised the season's few moments of "effective growth" but also criticized its repetitive storyline and lack of character development, adding that the show's "stillness"..."makes for fatally inert television". Angie Hahn of The Hollywood Reporter described the season as "muted" and felt the show "retreat[ing] into familiar territory", writing that the season "has the feel of a show burnt out from the effort of trying to outdo itself."
Ben Travers of IndieWire wrote, "season 4 is still pretty fun; an emotionally rich restaurant drama with great food, a few laughs, and lots of heart. Seen another way, though, and it's our second straight disappointment; a prolonged story propped up by its talented cast and dragged out for reasons that remain unclear." Jack Seale of The Guardian was more positive, writing that the show has "outgrown the 'Yes, chef!' rages and screaming matches in the pantry and morphed into something more tender, beautiful â and endlessly moving." Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone agreed, describing the season as "tense" and "heartwarmingly chaotic" and that it returns to "satisfying form". Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic also positively reviewed the season, feeling it represented "progress, and forward momentum, and the impossible optimism of people changing for the better." She praised the season's emphasis on personal growth, writing, "after the slow-drip, languorous suffering of Season 3, it's thrilling to see the characters and the action move so purposefully and gratifyingly forward." Tara Bennett of IGN also described the season as a return to form, similarly praising its more "interior" stakes and intimate tone. She felt the season worked as a conclusion to the series, writing, "whether or not it's the series finale, it attains that special alchemy of satisfying closure while leaving plenty leftover for audiences to ponder about where these characters go next."
The Ringer columnist Ben Lindbergh wrote, "...with a mountain of emotional baggage unpacked, there's an opportunity to take a risk and redefine a series that's already made its mark on prestige TV. For worse or for better, The Bear has broken its pattern. 'Everything in life is just for a while,' Richie tells Sydney, quoting Philip K. Dick, as one does, in the midst of a pre-wedding panic attack. Life is too short not to say how you feel: The clock is counting down to the day when each of our parachutes fails. That goes for fictional characters, too, even if this series' clock just reset for a fifth season. At least the Berzattos and their associates have a chance to go out with drier eyes, fuller hearts, and deeper pockets. They used to yell loudly but suffer silently. They're learning to be loud in a more rewarding way."
The New Republic thought the season was self-conscious but a turn for the better, concluding, "this season recaptures something of what has been lost about this show. But The Bear doesnâÂÂt need to apologize, and, regardless, its apologies aren't enough. The Bear needs to move forward, to gut-renovate, to reimagine itself boldly yet again. The finale teases us with the possibility that it just might do that." David Bianculli of NPR's Fresh Air stated "Call The Bear a comedy if you must, but I won't. Watching this new season, I cried more times than I laughed. Yet however you characterize it, The Bear...is the best series on television."
At year's end, TheWrap named Ayo Edebiri's season four work one of the 10 best TV performances of 2025. The Bear appeared on multiple year-end "best of TV" lists. Shifter magazine named it their best TV show of 2025. RogerEbert.coms Clint Worthington wrote "Storer's open-heartedness and the weepy commitment of its cast make it incredible television, leveraging the goodwill they've spent seasons cultivating and stretching its cooking-as-catharsis mood to its limit...The food tastes good. I'll eat it." Reel 360 wrote, "Few shows capture the intersection of work and identity with this much intensity. You feel it in your chest." The Cleveland Plain-Dealer critic wrote that The Bear had "rebounded nicely after a self-indulgent third season." In March 2026, Glamour magazine recommended the first four seasons as "binge-worthy" and commented, "It's a strange thing that the only way to relieve the stress of the series is to keep watching it!"