Blaze
Sundance Selects | Release Date: August 17, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverOliver JonesSep 7, 2018
Along with Dickey’s equally feral and vulnerable performance, what stands out most in Blaze is just how fully formed and realized Hawke’s vision is as a filmmaker. Read full review
100
ConsequenceDan CaffreyMar 21, 2018
Dickey pivots between storyteller, philosopher, hopeless romantic, philanderer, asshole, loyal friend, and belligerent drunk all the way up until the very end. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 18, 2018
It’s the kind of movie that, if you give yourself to it, you’ll love. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 6, 2018
The usual sequence of ballad-of-a-tormented-artist verses plays out: early promise; success and betrayal; redemption and death. What pulls against the relentless momentum of biography is the sweet inertia of life, a lot of which is spent drunk, in bed, on the road, hanging out with friends or all of the above. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 4, 2018
It’s a carefully crafted, almost reverential character study of man and music Hawke clearly and greatly admires. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsSep 27, 2018
Movies about reckless, chemically addled men rarely have the nerve to go whole hog with the bad behavior, because it makes for alienating company. Still: Blaze comes closer than most to an honest look at this sort of troubadour and this kind of life. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubJoshua AlstonSep 7, 2018
Blaze feels like a true passion project, an engine running on Hawke’s endless supply of enthusiasm for his subject. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyAug 16, 2018
Blaze isn’t a flashy movie, which seems about right since Hawke’s closest mentors and collaborators (Richard Linklater, for example) aren’t known for their look-at-me personalities. Like the real-life Foley, they’re storytellers and yarn spinners first and foremost, fame and fortune be damned. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 4, 2018
Instead of following biopic blueprints, Hawke directs Blaze like a Foley song: artful, all over the place and possessed of enough blunt truth and aching tenderness to pull you up short. Read full review
80
Film ThreatHunter LanierAug 22, 2018
As far as romantic laments of starving artists go, Blaze is one of the better ones. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeApr 9, 2018
Foley's cult may never grow as big as his most ardent fans would like. But Hawke and Rosen and Dickey have given the man something better than posthumous record sales. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanApr 9, 2018
Blaze, which leaps around in time, telling Blaze Foley’s story by zeroing in on a handful of disparate moments, is beautifully made. It’s an organic slice of life — raw and untidy, deceptively aimless but always exploratory. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleAug 15, 2018
What separates Blaze from its peers, however, is the obvious affection the filmmakers have for their assortment of damaged characters. In Ben Dickey, Hawke and company have found a remarkable physical and musical double for Foley. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 14, 2018
It’s not that Blaze lacks tension or focus – it’s simply that Hawke is more fascinated with passion than profile. And here, that’s more than enough. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 19, 2018
The movie is Hawke’s fourth and best feature as a director; it’s immensely touching, and only deceptively shapeless. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 19, 2018
An absorbing, illuminating film. Read full review
75
Film Journal InternationalAnna StormSep 7, 2018
Languid, associative, at times dragging, at other moments deeply affecting, thanks to a song and a trick of the light, Ethan Hawke’s Blaze is difficult to define. Read full review
75
The Film StageDan MeccaApr 9, 2018
This is an interesting, frustrating man to focus on, all the way up to his muddled end. That Hawke’s film will introduce a new audience to his music and soulful tenure feels like its own victory. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJordan Ruimy
Overall, this is astute, fascinating filmmaking from Hawke who believes the small details are all part of the bigger picture, the deeper experience of knowing who Blaze Foley was. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 7, 2018
Singer-songwriter Ben Dickey is affecting as Foley, assisted ably by a supporting cast that fights to transcend the drunken-angel clichés of the man’s legacy. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 3, 2018
What Hawke has provided here, with plenty of grace and a minimum of fuss, is an elegy for a life that went missing, more smolder than blaze, and a chance to hear the songs of the unsung. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 17, 2018
Blaze’s best scene features Kris Kristofferson as Foley’s once-abusive, now near-senile father and Alynda Segarra as his sister, who escaped the old man’s malevolent influence by finding Jesus. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichApr 9, 2018
Foley never wanted to be a star, shining only for itself. He wanted to be a legend, and live forever. Thanks to Ethan Hawke’s slippery, whiskey-soaked biopic of the late musician — and newcomer Benjamin Dickey’s casually spellbinding lead performance — he’s closer than ever to getting his wish. Read full review
63
San Francisco ChronicleCarla MeyerSep 27, 2018
Musician Charlie Sexton brings charisma and a haunted quality to Townes Van Zandt, the legendary Texas musician who was a Foley pal, drinking buddy and fellow teller of tall tales. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonSep 19, 2018
The movie's best window into Foley comes via his music, played expressively by Dickey, whose performance finds humor in Foley's rather sad life. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenSep 6, 2018
With Blaze, a fractured story of country music singer-songwriter Blaze Foley, director Ethan Hawke admirably battles the clichés of the musical biopic. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinSep 13, 2018
That Hawke so closely aligns his cinematic style, inventive as it is, with the story’s disorderly, scruffily offbeat characters and settings is both a strength and a liability. His kaleidoscopic, at times ghostly, approach proves a valiant if studied effort. Read full review
58
Original-CinJim SlotekDec 13, 2018
At more than two hours, Blaze is a meandering tale of genius and futility, tender, but overlong and wallowing, given that we know how it ends. Read full review
50
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenSep 3, 2018
I’m convinced more of Hawke’s passion for the man than his place in music history. Read full review
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