Fahrenheit 9/11
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: June 23, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
This movie, the subject of controversy, is a defiantly personal statement on what the war really is--laced with that now-familiar "Roger and Me" mix of homespun wit, pop culture playfulness, populist heart twisting and "gotcha" guerilla film-making tactics. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Moore makes no pretense of being "fair and balanced." He makes a passionate case for his own perspective, and invites us to agree with him or not. "I fulminate, you decide" could be his motto. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Assessing the merits of a political film is a tricky business. Obviously, its quality is partly a function of its power to persuade, but its persuasiveness is in the eye of the beholder. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianKaren Karbo
A savagely partisan indictment of George W. Bush's presidency. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Moore has marshaled what's on the record and off into a stinging indictment of where we're going. In a multiplex filled with Hollywood cotton candy, we need him more than ever. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The documentary's scathing attack on the war in Iraq and George W. Bush's presidency is informative, provocative, frightening, compelling, funny, manipulative and, most of all, entertaining. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A compelling, persuasive film, at odds with the White House effort to present Bush as a strong leader. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Scalding and glib, derisive yet impassioned, Fahrenheit 9/11 is an intensely resonant piece of Bush-bashing, because it lets the president do most of the work. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 has launched an unapologetic attack, both savage and savvy, on an administration he feels has betrayed the best of America and done extensive damage in the world. Read full review
80
Film ThreatTim Merrill
So maybe the entire right wing should just shut the f--- up, and accept that Michael Moore is going to have his say now. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
This would be 10 times the movie if it featured an actual debate between Moore and Bush. Nonetheless, the man makes a remarkably strong case, tastefully inserting himself into the Bush-baiting only when necessary--one such stroke of brilliance involves personally urging congressmen to send their own kids to Iraq. Read full review
80
EmpireDamon Wise
Arguably not the most proficiently crafted film in Cannes this year and certainly not the most balanced, but Moore’s assault on the Bush administration is a terrific polemic. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
So great are the charges raised against the Bush administration in the film, and so combustible the current state of geopolitics, that Moore’s film could actually prove to be the first in history to help unseat a sitting American president. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The information here isn't necessarily new, but it is packaged in an acid-tongued way along with powerhouse visuals that drive home the filmmaker's nakedly political views. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
One last thought: Fahrenheit 9/11 is many things, but for pity's sake let's not call it a documentary. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Unapologetically slanted -- and often hilarious. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
As a character assassin, Moore fails, because you can't kill anyone with contempt and sarcasm. And as an independent counsel prosecuting Bush for bamboozling America, Moore likewise misses his mark because many of the exhibits he offers as evidence are emotional rather than factual. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Fahrenheit 9/11 offers the thrill of a coherent explanation for everything, but parts of the movie are no better than a wild, lunging grab at a supposed master plan. [28 June 2004, p. 108]
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
More often than not, Moore goes for the guffaw, and as enjoyable as that can be, it falls short of producing the kind of devastating, in-depth analysis that might really challenge the hearts and minds of ALL audiences, left and right. At the very least, this approach undercuts the effectiveness of Moore’s own case. Read full review
70
TimeMary Corliss
A brisk and entertaining indictment of the Bush Administration’s middle East policies before and after September 11, 2001. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
If Moore is formidable, it's not because he is a great filmmaker (far from it), but because he infuses his sense of ridicule with the fury of moral indignation. Fahrenheit 9/11 is strongest when that wrath is vented on Bush and his cohorts. Read full review
70
The New York TimesDana Stevens
While Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 will be properly debated on the basis of its factual claims and cinematic techniques, it should first of all be appreciated as a high-spirited and unruly exercise in democratic self-expression. Read full review
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
A potential cultural juggernaut. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
There are plenty of laughs whenever Moore wants to twist the knife, but the bottom line is that he respects and trusts his fellow Americans a lot more than Bush does. Read full review
70
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore largely stays out of the picture, and the film is the better for it. But otherwise his style hasn't changed. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Fahrenheit 9/11 is more like a drug experience than a political documentary. It's a mind-bending, half-digested mass of video clips, interviews, statistics, rampant speculation and the cheap gags Moore has never been able to resist. Read full review
70
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Where earlier Moore films showcased a fair amount humor, even when covering weighty topics, Fahrenheit – especially the latter half – gives us Moore at his most serious. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
As much as the jurors at this year's Cannes Film Festival insisted that the Palme D'Or was awarded to the best film in competition, it was a sign of the times that they chose to honor Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, marking a clear and decisive victory for ideology over aesthetics. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The sum of all this is moderately rousing and deliciously irreverent in the Moore style, but not earthshaking as journalism, and devoid of anything that the average person doesn't already know from reading the newspaper. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The real problem with Fahrenheit 9/11 isn't that it attacks the current Republican administration, but that it does so clumsily and with poor focus. Read full review
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
Basically a two-hour argument for regime change that isn't half as incendiary or persuasive as its maker would have you believe. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Aesthetically, this isn't a great documentary, although, during the first half, there are great moments in it. But the latter part is scattered and frenzied, rather like an excited dog tearing off after too many rabbits at once -- a thematic hunt that's all chase and scant context. Read full review
60
NewsweekDavid Gates
That's the real problem with Fahrenheit 9/11: not the message, but the method… Moore’s default mode is overkill: he even notes that on the night before the attacks Bush slept on "fine French linen." Surely scratchy muslin wouldn't have stopped the evildoers. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Moore's desperate need for attention is irritating, but it's also his strength as a gadfly; it drives him to needle sacred cows and received wisdom that would otherwise go unchallenged. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Even as you're laughing, you get the uncomfortable sense you're being recruited, and not always honestly, to Moore's us-and-them point of view. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
At its best, Fahrenheit 9/11 is an impressionist burlesque of contemporary American politics that culminates in a somber lament for lives lost in Iraq. But the good stuff -- and there's some extremely good stuff -- keeps getting tainted by Mr. Moore's poison-camera penchant for drawing dark inferences from dubious evidence.
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The surprising thing about Michael Moore's polemic is not one-sidedness, which was a given: It's his failure to find devastating new weapons of mass destruction to aim at Bush's head. The smoking guns he holds up often fire blanks, and the ones that don't are mostly derringers. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
It delighted me; it disgusted me. I celebrate it; I lament it. I'm sure of only one thing: that I don't trust anyone--pro or con--who doesn't feel a twinge of doubt about his or her responses. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The problem is not merely that Moore preaches to the choir. It's that, at his worst, he's so bumptious and bullheaded that he helps keep that choir small and strident. In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore is so anti-Bush that he becomes a Bizarro-world version of Bush himself: tone-deaf, spluttering, incapable of framing an intelligent debate. Read full review
50
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Fahrenheit 9/11 is sometimes slipshod in its making and juvenile in its travesty, and of course it has no interest in overall fairness to Bush. But it vents an anger about this presidency that, as the film's ardent reception shows, seethes in very many of us. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Moore stays "on message" here from first shot to last. There is no debate, no analysis of facts or search for historical context. Moore simply wants to blame one man and his family for the situation in Iraq the United States now finds itself in…So the real question is not how good a film is Fahrenheit 9/11 -- it is undoubtedly Moore's weakest -- but will a film help to get a president fired? Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Pic fails to provide any hard facts or make any incriminating connections that a reasonably informed person doesn't already know about, so intellectually Moore is largely preaching to the converted in this blatant cinematic 2004 campaign pamphlet. Read full review
30
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Moore's supporters are quick to impugn the liberal credentials of anyone who criticizes his presentation of the information he digs up (or, in some cases, makes up). For them, Michael Moore is the issues he talks about, so his detractors must be enemies of democratic principles. It's an old trick, akin to the way Pauline Kael was accused of being insensitive about the Holocaust when she didn't like "Shoah." Read full review
More From This Movie

67 Critic Reviews

6.2 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL