Blindspotting
Summit Entertainment | Release Date: July 20, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 28, 2018
Blindspotting moves at a brisk pace and raises the dramatic stakes with each scene; director Estrada has a masterful touch for pacing. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 25, 2018
Funny, vibrant, insightful, tragic, achingly timely, and yet with an underlying message about empathy that is timeless, Blindspotting may be the summer's most essential movie. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonJul 20, 2018
Like all great movies, Blindspotting is a force to be reckoned with and wrestled with. No matter where you land in your assessment, your expectations are guaranteed to be shattered. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 19, 2018
One of the year’s great films, and somehow you can tell from the opening moments. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 18, 2018
The best films teach you how to watch them within the first few minutes. Blindspotting is no exception. The film gets off to an exhilarating start, with split-screen images of Oakland, Calif., unspooling to the tune of a soaring aria. Read full review
100
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoMar 21, 2018
Blindspotting is a force to be reckoned with in terms of experience, anger and boiled frustrations that beg anyone watching to lead the charge for change. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter Debruge
In a stroke of combined wisdom and humility, rather than pretending to have the answers, Casal and Diggs are content to pose the questions, relying on their considerable wit and comedic charm to present such tricky topics in refreshingly engaging fashion. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekJul 19, 2018
Blindspotting is entertaining, but it also packs an emotional punch. Sometimes, even the place you call home can make you feel like a ghost. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 26, 2018
That’s Blindspotting all over: an exuberant, brightly colored, zigzagging portrait of a city, an uneasy transformation and a friendship. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 25, 2018
It is only when Diggs and Casal near the end of the film − including a too-convenient-by-half encounter with a cop − that the effort’s ambition in creating a treatise on all of Western society’s ills begins to crack. But until then, Blindspotting possesses enough flair, passion and sweat to put up one hell of a fight. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesBrent McKnightJul 25, 2018
Both inviting and confrontational, Blindspotting shakes viewers in their seats and announces Diggs as a star-in-the-making leading man. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyAug 2, 2018
Blindspotting is a first film, a busy jumble of thoughts and urgent feelings: The humour is sometimes corny, the surreal fantasies strained and the dramatization of racial privilege unsubtle. Yet the level of ambition here, the commitment to try to say so much, is fresh and exciting. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerJul 16, 2018
Diggs, Casal, and Estrada are all walking on a high wire here, requiring a balance so delicate that it may not be visible to some of the audience until they have to decide for themselves whether Blindspotting’s leap-of-faith climax works. Read full review
83
The PlaylistGregory Ellwood
Yes, you’ll likely leave the theater blown away by Casal and Diggs’ considerable talent, but its Estrada’s vision that will haunt you. Read full review
80
CineVueChristopher MachellFeb 11, 2019
This is vital filmmaking; Blindspotting is undoubtedly part of a new moment in American cinema and is a fierce, complex satire in it own right. Read full review
80
EmpireAmon WarmannOct 8, 2018
By equal turns tense and witty but with plenty of perceptive social commentary to go around, this is a film that only gets more rewarding the more you look under its surface. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeOct 6, 2018
What could have been laboured and polemical is deftly handled, defused with comedy and powered by a pulsating score. Dialogue that slides into rap at key moments adds a heartfelt sense of honesty. This is the real deal. Read full review
80
The GuardianMike McCahillOct 4, 2018
The film’s insidious crawl away from comedy into sweaty waking nightmare is arresting indeed. As is, finally, its insistence that some elements of American life remain too serious to joke about. Read full review
80
Film ThreatBrian ThompsonAug 30, 2018
Sure, Blindspotting can feel a bit rough around the edges. Diggs and Casal have so many ideas they want to explore, and they aren’t always able to articulate them in a concise, economical way. But even if they haven’t quite honed their craft as screenwriters yet, theirs is a story that desperately needs to be told and they continue to find compelling ways by which to convey its urgency. Read full review
80
Film Journal InternationalStephen Whitty Jul 19, 2018
Casal and Diggs have both lived these roles for years, so it’s not surprising that they never deliver a false moment. Read full review
80
The New York TimesGlenn KennyJul 17, 2018
This movie, which was written by Mr. Diggs and Mr. Casal, has an energetic-to-the-point-of-boisterous style. Its lively frequency is embedded in the writing, bolstered by Carlos López Estrada’s direction, and kept buoyant by the performers. This particular aspect of the film makes it exciting to watch, but can also be confounding. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 31, 2018
By equal turns hilarious and right on the edge of horrific. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 26, 2018
Blindspotting is a compelling film with much to say about subjects like gentrification and race – things it approaches with a mix of wit and seriousness. However, when it comes to punctuating a core theme of the Black Lives Matters movement, it falls short of the gut-punch delivered by a film such as "Fruitvale Station." Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 26, 2018
The best parts are the breezes of real, observed life that breathe through many of the scenes — the street corners, the storefronts, the rough camaraderie of guys hanging out, the wary warmth of women. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJul 19, 2018
Over 95 minutes, Blindspotting builds tension like a simmering cauldron on the verge of boiling over. Its themes of racial prejudice, class conflict, friendship and loyalty find a voice that’s both disarmingly funny and heartbreakingly tragic. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleJul 19, 2018
There’s an upside to the film so eagerly jumping from anguish to slapstick, from social drama to buddy movie. Blindspotting is, like the Oakland it so dearly loves, always many things at once. Read full review
70
SlateInkoo KangJul 19, 2018
The dual portrait that Blindspotting offers is heady and dense and mighty compelling. Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonJul 19, 2018
The film is a confident debut from two writers and a director with no shortage of things to say and a strong voice to say them in. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 18, 2018
Unfortunately, it’s those same feelings that stick in the memory when López Estrada overdoes the melodrama and lets the plot fire off in too many directions. No worries. Diggs and Casal will keep you riveted. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 18, 2018
There is something about the calculation of Blindspotting, a movie all too aware of its own impressive ambition, that somehow resists the poetic abandon, the electrifying spontaneity that Estrada and his collaborators are trying to pull off. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJul 18, 2018
It’s wild and singular, often beautiful, a feast and feat of self-definition through verbal dexterity. It’s shaking with laughter, teeming with insights and tense as hell when the police roll up. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim Grierson
As led by Daveed Diggs’ impassioned, tormented performance, Blindspotting is hard to shake, despite its on-the-nose plot points and melodramatic flourishes. Read full review
67
UproxxVince ManciniAug 2, 2018
Blindspotting excels at capturing a feeling and expressing it with style and kitsch, but there are times when you wonder what new insight they’re offering beyond the rhymes. Read full review
67
The Film StageDaniel Schindel
There is undeniable craft here, and an impossible-to-ignore signal that everyone involved in the project deserves attention going forward. What does work is strong, sometimes powerful. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric Kohn
Ultimately, the movie belongs to Diggs, a Tony winner for “Hamilton” who comes into his own as a genuine movie star with a fully realized performance that easily outshines the bumpier moments. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd
The film’s messy mix of flavorful, sometimes over-the-top character comedy and sincere racial politics benefits from the voice of its stars, who also wrote the script. Read full review
65
The AtlanticDavid SimsJul 20, 2018
Blindspotting has enough verve, humor, and passion to recommend it—even as it overplays its hand in its final minutes. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJul 25, 2018
It comes off as fairly organic, at least until the ending, when the device is undercut by an outrageous narrative coincidence that works against both the feeling of spontaneity and the admirable nuance that defines most of the movie. Read full review
60
Vanity FairRichard Lawson
Blindspotting never settles into a consistent cadence. This isn’t exactly a problem, in theory—movies can contain multitudes, of course—but in this trio’s overeager execution, all that chaos renders the movie curiously inert. Read full review
55
TheWrapAlonso Duralde
Co-stars and co-writers Daveed Diggs (“Wonder”) and Rafael Casal have a lot to say, much of it funny and/or provocative, but neither they nor first-time feature director Carlos López Estrada can figure out a way to shape all this material into a cohesive film. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineDerek SmithJul 17, 2018
The film takes aim at myriad targets and bluntly satirizing them in disparate styles that never mesh into a cohesive whole. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthy
Carlos Lopez Estrada’s debut feature brandishes brash exuberance and stilted storytelling tropes in roughly equal measure, yielding a result that stimulates just as it cheapens itself dramatically. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily Yoshida
It’s not that Blindspotting doesn’t have important points to make about how individuals live in a collective history of racialized violence. It’s that it has a hard time making those points feel organic to the story and style, whether it’s going for realism or over-the-top musical-theater territory. Read full review
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