20,000 Days on Earth
Drafthouse Films | Release Date: September 17, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
83
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisSep 25, 2014
It’s right up there with the best rock documentaries. That is, if you can call it a documentary. Read full review
100
The New York TimesStephen HoldenSep 17, 2014
It is as intimate and honest a portrait of a rock artist’s creative roots as any film has attempted. Read full review
100
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekSep 16, 2014
20,000 Days on Earth is meticulously crafted but nonetheless feels casual and heartfelt. It's revelatory, and wonderful, to watch Cave walking (or driving) around, being a real person — if the movie is somewhat staged, it's never stagey. Read full review
100
Time Out LondonDave CalhounSep 16, 2014
The film conceals as much as it reveals, and its beauty is that it pretends to do nothing else. It embraces a mystery and protects it, and it’s thrilling to behold. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianJeff BakerOct 17, 2014
Talented, prolific, familiar with film, etc. Cave is a natural to push documentaries in a new direction, and 20,000 Days on Earth does it. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 19, 2014
For the most part, 20,000 Days on Earth – the approximate amount of time Cave has been alive on this planet – is an imagistic and impressionistic work, a Nick Cave-esque tone poem driven by moments of visual and thematic juxtaposition you either have to reject or accept. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 2, 2014
20,000 Days on Earth isn’t so much a portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, looking back on his life, as it is a meditation on the art of storytelling. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsSep 18, 2014
Cave's soulful performance, shot in real-time and in extreme close-up, is that much more impressive once you realize he's playing a song for Forsyth and Pollard before he's performed it in front of a live audience. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubJason HellerSep 17, 2014
One thing that ties all his projects together is a grainy, cinematic quality, which is partly the reason why 20,000 Days On Earth works so beautifully. Read full review
83
The PlaylistCory EverettMar 12, 2014
While the doc should prove essential for Nick Cave fans, it should be inspiring for those interested in the creative process or anyone searching for their muse. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 25, 2014
This examination of the whys and wherefores of indie rock star Nick Cave is an unusual and nonformulaic cinematic enterprise and an adventurous film by any standard. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 19, 2014
Certainly for any fan of Cave’s, 20,000 Days on Earth makes for a creative, enthralling journey through the man’s world. Read full review
80
CineVueEd FranklSep 18, 2014
The film is both a biography of Cave's life and a beguiling vision of a musician considering the meaning of his own art. Read full review
80
The TelegraphPatrick SmithSep 18, 2014
There is a beguiling, melancholic quality to the film, mirroring Cave’s personality. Read full review
80
EmpireGuy LodgeSep 15, 2014
It may not be an access-all-areas portrayal of one of rock's most enigmatic characters, but then, where would be the fun in that? Read full review
80
VarietyRob NelsonMar 12, 2014
An aptly intense and innovative study of pioneering rock poet Nick Cave, 20,000 Days on Earth playfully disguises itself as fiction while more than fulfilling the requirements of a biographical documentary. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMar 12, 2014
What makes 20,000 Days on Earth distinctive is that it provides an overview of the man and his art while creating the illusion that this has come together organically -- out of poetic ruminations, casual encounters, ghost-like visitations and good old Freudian psychoanalysis. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovOct 1, 2014
What’s great about this “documentary” – Cave gets a script credit alongside the directors, which kind of invalidates the whole notion of hands-off documentary filmmaking – is that it delves deeply into Cave’s notoriously fussy creative process without ever becoming stodgy or dull. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 26, 2014
It's a wondrous mix of the momentous and mundane, the profound and the perverse, with Cave blues-talking his way through the goofy juxtapositions, the darkness, and the light. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 25, 2014
It’s a relief to find a rock-doc that eschews the usual grainy hand-held wobble for steady camerawork and crisp compositions. The movie looks gorgeous — an artful frame into which Cave can pour his demons. Read full review
75
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeSep 17, 2014
The results are remarkably intelligent and entertaining, even for someone who (like this writer) finds Cave’s music rather dirge-like. Read full review
70
The DissolveKeith PhippsSep 17, 2014
While 20,000 Days On Earth never finds the real Nick Cave, it’s because it knows better than to try to look for it. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 15, 2014
No one who was not laughably self-involved would agree to a project like 20,000 Days on Earth, and yet Cave, to his credit, comes most alive in his hymns to other selves. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)John SemleySep 25, 2014
The film is so incessant on bolstering Cave’s repute and noble struggle with the art of songwriting that it can’t help but seem bloated and self-important. Sometimes seriousness should speak for itself. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJohn SemleyMar 12, 2014
While the film is seemingly accessible as a portrait of an artist who seems particularly attuned to his own creative process, and particularly adept at describing this attunement, it's unlikely that many who aren't already whole-hog Bad Seeds fans would be able to stomach much of Cave's self-styled pomposity. Read full review
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