King Coal
| Release Date: August 11, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 7 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
The PlaylistMarya E. Gates
Sheldon is a coal miner’s daughter, and her brother is a fourth-generation miner. Coal is intrinsic to her family. This is the story of her people, a celebration of their traditions, a condemnation of an economic system that failed them, and an elegy for a waning way of life. Read full review
90
The New York TimesRobert DanielsAug 14, 2023
In this melancholic, thoughtfully attuned cinematic essay, no mountain is more important than the people who are still confined to the claustrophobic tunnels of the past. Read full review
83
The Film StageJohn Fink
It offers no easy answers while spinning an evocative web of ideas, treating the mineral and all that follows as a religion complete with sacrifices. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithAug 10, 2023
Filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon, a native of the state, has done a breathtakingly expressive job of capturing the strangeness, the beauty and the devastation of her homeland in the poetic, entrancing documentary King Coal. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloAug 11, 2023
Filmed in Central Appalachia—including the director's home state of West Virginia—King Coal moves beyond shallow impressions of the region with a real love for her neighbors and prodding questions about what it means to identify with an industry that has harmed and exploited generations of families. Read full review
75
IndieWireKatie Rife
King Coal goes deeper into the cultural roots of the opioid crisis, looking at a region both devastated and nurtured by “the King” and asking what a future without it might look like. Read full review
73
Paste MagazineJacob OllerAug 11, 2023
King Coal might not be an invigorating, fire-lighting work like Harlan County, USA, but it is still a startling piece of anthropology: An expression of a place and a people, and their local god, ruler and captor. Read full review
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