Stranger in the Alps received acclaim from critics; review aggregator Metacritic gave the album a weighted average score of 82/100 based on 16 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[12]
Josh Modell of The A.V. Club gave the album a perfect score, saying, "Stranger In The Alps alchemizes sorrow into redemptive beauty. Its never about wallowing, but about slowly moving through it. That difference, played out over some incredible, wise-beyond-her-years songwriting, makes it one of the best albums of the year."[14] Writing for Pitchfork, Sam Sodomsky said that the album is "a collection of songs about intimacy, documenting how our relationships affect the way we view ourselves and interact with others... Bridgers voice has a breezy, conversational flutter [that] sounds best when she double-tracks it in layers of light falsetto", rating the album 7.0/10.