How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Neon | Release Date: April 7, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Total FilmJosh Slater-Williams Apr 20, 2023
The electric, forthright How to Blow Up a Pipeline excels as both truly riveting entertainment and an energizing call to action, in part through the cleverness of its genre conceit: what could be a better fit for a story about collective action and fighting the system than a heist movie? Read full review
100
ColliderChase HutchinsonSep 13, 2022
With its strong character work that gets interwoven with a striking story of sabotage, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a riveting tapestry of the plight facing the modern climate justice movement. Read full review
98
PolygonPete VolkApr 7, 2023
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is the rare movie that effectively weaponizes a radical political message by marrying it to conventional genre storytelling. It feels like a game-changer: the kind of movie that will inspire artists and budding activists alike for generations to come. Read full review
90
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzApr 10, 2023
Incendiary and furious, confident and courageous, the new thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline boasts not only the best title of the year so far but also the best score, cast and itchy, charged, electric directorial vision – all of it only ever-so-slightly goosed by a political softening that perhaps says more about contemporary American filmmaking than the storytellers working within it. Read full review
90
TheWrapTomris LafflyApr 8, 2023
In its final moments, How to Blow Up a Pipeline proves it has the guts and lucidity to challenge even the most capitalist of minds, even if the film never blatantly endorses the extreme measures it depicts. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerApr 5, 2023
In a less interesting film, this would all be seen through the eyes of freshly radicalized documentarian Shawn (Scribner, black-ish), but Goldhaber amplifies the tension by keeping this an ensemble. Read full review
89
Paste MagazineJacob OllerOct 24, 2022
What makes How to Blow Up a Pipeline great, is that it so deftly wins us to its cause anyway. It’s absolutely electric filmmaking. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzApr 7, 2023
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is one of the most original American thrillers in years, and one that draws from a deep well of movie history as it develops its characters and sets up its plot twists. Read full review
88
ObserverOliver JonesApr 7, 2023
How to Blow Up a Pipeline both fully embraces its agitprop roots while also transcending them. Read full review
80
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyApr 20, 2023
It’s not a manifesto, really, but a matter-of-fact portrayal of the palpable anger emanating from a betrayed generation. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 20, 2023
Here, the pipeline destroyers are the good guys; an interesting genre twist though one which arguably defangs the film, just a little, removing the addictive flavour of cruelty and chaos, yet not making it any the less gripping and ingenious. Read full review
80
Little White LiesHannah StrongApr 20, 2023
Not only does the film succeed as a tense heist movie, it’s a sharp reminder of what we stand to lose when we allow ourselves to be taken in by capitalist propaganda or become numb to impending climate disaster. Read full review
80
CineVueTom DugginsApr 18, 2023
It can be sly as a fox one minute and as obvious as dynamite the next, but it’s never less than thrilling. Read full review
80
EmpireKambole CampbellApr 17, 2023
Tense and tightly plotted, How To Blow Up A Pipeline is existentially terrifying but not nihilistic. It’s an exciting, humanist eco-thriller that figures there’s still time to take action — but only so much. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Roxana HadadiApr 7, 2023
How to Blow Up a Pipeline wants to pick a fight, and it does so with an appealing lack of artifice, its heart on its sleeve and its agenda in its punching fists. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarApr 7, 2023
Simultaneously rousing and unnerving, “Pipeline” strays from despair. It doesn’t complicate the story with the loss of human life the way “Night Moves” does, and in that sense it can seem too neatly wrapped-up. Still, its pointed timeliness enthralls. Read full review
80
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannApr 6, 2023
From its close-up shots to its wide framing of characters against the barren Texas desert, there is a sense of immediacy that makes the film's thriller elements all the more enrapturing. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid HughesFeb 22, 2023
In favouring the dramatic over the didactic, Goldhaber arguably buries the themes of the source text a little too deeply, resulting in a film that isn’t quite the call to action it might have been. Still, its message resonates – and its bomb-setting scenes are as nail-biting as cinema’s best bomb disposals. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubMurtada ElfadlApr 6, 2023
How To Blow Up A Pipeline plays like a taut thriller that tells an unusual story. Its strength lies in making a topical issue palatable and highly watchable. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussApr 4, 2023
These people seem real, even if their primary motivations are ideological. Perhaps more than they intended to, Goldhaber and the actors make the political personal. That’s a triumph of craft over appetites for destruction. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 4, 2023
Making it all work is the cast, all experienced but mostly just-unknown enough to give How to Blow Up a Pipeline a genuine indie anarchist feel. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenApr 1, 2023
An efficient thriller with eco-political ambitions. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineMark HansonSep 19, 2022
Few films feel as excitingly jacked in to our current social climate as Daniel Goldhaber’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 12, 2023
As a thriller channeling the deepest anxieties of its era, however, How to Blow Up a Pipeline feels urgently, unmistakably of its time. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeApr 7, 2023
While these stories are relatable and well-acted by a sturdy cast of exciting talent, they lack the potency of depth. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is skillfully executed — it hits all the right beats as a genre film, especially when it comes to ratcheting up the tension ­— but suffers from the same narrative limitations as Goldhaber’s equally compelling debut feature Cam. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearApr 6, 2023
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a thriller, but it’s not just a thriller. It’s also aiming to be a Gen Z radicalization manifesto in the same spirit as the book, if not with the same rigor. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergApr 6, 2023
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is at its best when it functions as a kind of roughed-up caper movie; it has a degree of suspense and efficiency that are becoming all too rare in the mainstream. Read full review
55
The Daily BeastNick SchagerJun 6, 2023
A work that proves hopelessly at odds with itself all the way to a conclusion that fizzles at the moment it should explode. Read full review
42
IndieWireJude DryApr 8, 2023
As the action progresses, the film seems more concerned with the hitting beats of the story than sending its characters on an emotional journey. Read full review
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