Lost Girls
Netflix | Release Date (Streaming): March 13, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 13, 2020
Garbus brings off something extraordinary in a film that sets out to leave us sad, enraged, and profoundly unsatisfied. Lost Girls makes us want to rethink our need for a certain kind of closure in a world that has so little of it. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 12, 2020
There are different ways to describe Garbus’s telling of this mystery: it’s serious, respectful, gravely melancholic. Yet anger best describes the movie’s atmosphere, its overall mood and its authorial tone. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanJan 31, 2020
In Lost Girls, Liz Garbus takes the serial-killer thriller and turns it on its head, insisting that we see the victims as larger than the crimes that destroyed them. Read full review
75
PolygonKaren HanMar 18, 2020
The goal isn’t to find a killer, so much as it is to emphasize the ways women’s stories are often dismissed, and how people who aren’t well-off aren’t offered the same institutional consideration and care as the rich. It’s a compelling point to make, but one almost lost in the movie’s murky execution. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartMar 12, 2020
Garbus’ film is at its best when giving voice to the female relatives of these victims, who come together to pressure the cops — who’ve been instructed to downplay the possible connection between the killings — to do more. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMar 12, 2020
It helps immensely that the film has an actress like Amy Ryan (Birdman, Beautiful Boy) to play Mari Gilbert, whose years-long battle to get anyone at all — the press, the police, the people of New York — to care about her daughter Shannan forms the emotional core of the story. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzMar 11, 2020
Just as it is possible to make a compelling doc without telling an entire life’s story end to end, Lost Girls proves that you can make a substantial thriller that doesn’t rely on a comforting real-world conclusion. Read full review
75
IndieWireKate ErblandFeb 2, 2020
Garbus, who has long been motivated by stories about remarkable women and horrible crimes, makes a strong showing with Lost Girls, her first narrative feature in her decades-long career. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJan 29, 2020
While this isn't another Garbus documentary, she’s made a film with all the power of great non-fiction storytelling, and found a way to make the emotional message of this story hit home in a way that it wouldn’t have otherwise. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMar 10, 2020
What’s both intriguing and frustrating about the screen version, however, is the way that it flirts with a much thornier and potentially richer possibility, only to ultimately back away from that idea in favor of a straightforward plea for justice. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJason BaileyFeb 2, 2020
For all the impressive craft, sense of harrowing anxiety and searing performances on display, Lost Girls doesn’t seem to know how to wrap things up and it hurts the picture overall. Read full review
65
TheWrapTodd GilchristMar 12, 2020
Lost Girls is a story that works much better if you do a Google search before watching it, not after, since it offers a lot of convenient human truths, but not enough hard facts. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 25, 2020
Lost Girls is a moody, atmospheric but oddly unemotional mystery. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshMar 12, 2020
Though the film eventually gets to where it needs to go, it feels scattered, stumbling over true crime tropes on the way. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeMar 31, 2020
Lost Girls is sorely lacking and, ironically, one wonders what a Garbus docuseries could have found instead. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 2, 2020
Grim and gritty though seldom emotionally affecting, Lost Girls loses momentum just like the half-assed investigation of cops whose possible corruption is coyly suggested but unexplored, leaving another hole in an already incomplete story. Read full review
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