Daughters
Netflix | Release Date: August 9, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonAug 28, 2024
There are a lot of tears in this documentary, for the subjects and the audience, too. But Daughters is a remarkable study in how to tell this kind of story without twisting into sentimentality. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 16, 2024
The accrual of human detail pays off masterfully when we get to the dance itself — especially when the girls see their fathers for the first time. Read full review
91
The PlaylistBrian FarvourJan 26, 2024
This is far from the sort of cinematic experience one revisits time and time again, and it’s clear that’s not the intention; one viewing is all it takes to leave a lasting impression, like the simple memory of a young girl dancing with her dad. Read full review
90
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganAug 14, 2024
Rawly exposing the cruelty imposed upon predominantly Black children by the carceral state while also capturing the emotional whiplash of this fleeting encounter, Rae and Patton construct a visually stunning and narratively resonant portrait of love and longing. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAug 9, 2024
While the dance is clearly intended to be positive and inspiring (we’re told 95% of the fathers who participate never go back to jail), the movie isn’t afraid to show just how much fragility and uncertainty goes into the buildup and its aftermath. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesMatt BrennanFeb 12, 2024
Daughters culminates with an emotional father-daughter dance inside a Washington, D.C., jail. But its real potency, as both a portrait of families riven by incarceration and a call to action on prisoners’ rights, lies in what comes before and after. Read full review
90
VarietyLisa KennedyJan 26, 2024
The film is rife with visually lyrical moments that connect viewers with the young ones’ sorrows, fears, insights and hopes. Read full review
88
ObserverOliver JonesAug 19, 2024
More than anything, Daughters—along with Greg Kwedar’s remarkable current release Sing Sing—speaks to the absolute societal and spiritual imperative of investing in rehabilitation, within prisons and outside their walls. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comNell MinowAug 9, 2024
There are dozens of carefully observed and touching moments in “Daughters,” which won both the Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 8, 2024
There’s lots of hurt, past and present, in “Daughters,” as well as a huge measure of healing and forgiveness. Those feelings are palpable and contagious; they jump off the screen. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubBrent SimonAug 15, 2024
The film opens up an audience to deep reservoirs of feeling. The result is something both heartbreaking and beautiful, instructive and enlightening. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJan 26, 2024
An enormously moving documentary made all the more effective by co-directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s steadfast refusal to settle for easy sentiment in the face of difficult outcomes, Daughters has as much ugly-cry potential as any film in recent memory. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeAug 20, 2024
The dance is the picture’s climax, a glimpse of joy and optimism. But the film’s coda, shot three years later, shows the cost of prolonged separation. Hope is a spark that can be easily extinguished. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearAug 15, 2024
Rather than telling you how young women are affected by this, Patton and Rae show you. And to watch one of the interviewees go for being a joyous, giddy, chatty child to being a slightly older, more distant and jaded tween is heartbreaking. Read full review
80
The GuardianCath ClarkeAug 6, 2024
It’s a tender, painful, intimate film, made over several years as we watch four girls in the months before the dance. Read full review
80
Screen DailyNikki BaughanJan 26, 2024
Despite the sentimental score, which unnecessarily ramps up the emotion, Daughters is honest about the fact that this programme is not a magic bullet, just one important step on the road to change. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenAug 20, 2024
Daughters centers on a real-life event that is emotional catnip—a dance for daughters and their incarcerated fathers—but the documentary, like the men it features, earns its way to that overwhelming moment. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleAug 14, 2024
Time is the fundamental metric of prison life, which makes a documentary like “Daughters,” filmed over years, uniquely, maybe even monstrously capable of capturing its passing. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithAug 6, 2024
The importance of touch between a parent and child—and, in the case of this film, specifically between a father and daughter—is rarely discussed openly in Daughters, but it looms large over nearly every scene. Read full review
75
The Film StageJohn FinkJan 26, 2024
The film’s free-flowing, sometimes experimental structure proves evocative. Read full review
70
ColliderTaylor GatesFeb 7, 2024
Despite not ending on its strongest note, Daughters is still a highly effective documentary overall. Working with subjects this young and topics this sensitive can be challenging, and you always run the risk of feeling exploitative, but Daughters handles both with compassion and care. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDaniel FienbergJan 26, 2024
Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s Daughters targets viewers squarely and simultaneously in the head and the heart, succeeding much more effectively at the latter, presumably with the hope that the former will follow. Read full review
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