McQueen
Bleecker Street Media | Release Date: July 20, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJun 21, 2018
McQueen is a haunting story of extravagant talent and inescapable private sorrow, made with exquisite craftsmanship worthy of its subject. While a narrative biopic has been in development for years, this excellent documentary delivers an eye-popping, emotionally wrenching experience that paints a fully dimensional portrait of a complex artist. Read full review
91
Film Journal InternationalDavid NohAug 2, 2018
McQueen, the exhilarating, heartbreaking documentary by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, presents an almost excruciatingly intimate portrait of this genius. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 23, 2018
Another case of a talent torched by its own incandescence — the first half of McQueen is an indubitable thrill, and the second half almost too sad for words. Read full review
90
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 20, 2018
What the film does so movingly as a portrait is show the isolation that comes with creative success. Read full review
90
TheWrapDave WhiteJul 20, 2018
McQueen is formally traditional, and guided by a respectful approach to a complicated man. It’s lovingly told, even as it refuses to gloss over ugliness. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 19, 2018
Even if the dramas and dictates of couturiers and catwalks mean little to you, it is hard to resist the propulsive energy that director Ian Bonhote and co-director and writer Peter Ettedgui bring to the story of a designer whose background, beliefs and gifts were not what one would expect. Read full review
90
Village VoiceKyle TurnerJul 18, 2018
The difference between McQueen and the standard tortured genius documentary lies in the kind of artist McQueen was: Behind the (sometimes incendiary, sometimes infantile) provocations in his designs was a clear humanity, his garments the unfiltered expressions of his emotions and ideas. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 6, 2018
Itself crafted with great artistry and ingenuity, McQueen works both as a spectacular visual album of his work and an achingly moving account of the incomplete life behind it. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaApr 27, 2018
Thanks to a beautifully lush, moody score by Michael Nyman and great sound editing, even a fan who has pored over these archives obsessively will see them in a new light. What McQueen reminds those obsessives and laypeople alike is that fashion is an incredibly emotional art form, and McQueen’s work was some of the most moving there was or ever will be. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 15, 2018
The film opens with a camera slowly swirling around a skull. Red droplets splash on the cranium. In Michael Nyman’s score, a brass section booms rhythmically like blood in your ears. The effect is brooding and provocative. It’s pure drama. It’s perfectly Alexander McQueen. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Nathalie AtkinsonAug 2, 2018
McQueen is a haunting biography that goes beyond even that live runway experience to conjure the visionary himself, in as much as he may ever be known – and in a way even his savagely beautiful clothes themselves cannot. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 31, 2018
McQueen makes the case that its subject was an artist whose clay was clothing. It also, despite giving short shrift to psychoanalysis, reminds us that everything you might want to know about the artist can be found in the art. Read full review
83
The Film StageJose SolísJul 24, 2018
Unlike several nonfiction works that try to create defining portraits of the figures they chronicle, the filmmakers behind McQueen know that their subject is ultimately larger than life, so they bask in the creations he left behind and invite us to join if we’re willing to lose ourselves in them. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 19, 2018
If McQueen feels like it’s missing some deeper insights, it may be because its subject kept so much of himself hidden from even the people who loved him most.... What’s left is a fascinating if incomplete portrait of genius interrupted — and a life that should have lasted much longer than it did. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeJul 18, 2018
A film that’s refreshingly free of the gushing sound bites from sycophantic celebrities that too often dominate fashion documentaries. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 2, 2018
McQueen is an intriguing look at genius, its inspiration and ultimately its cost. Read full review
80
Time OutCath ClarkeJul 19, 2018
This intelligent, honest documentary explores his complex personality without getting tacky or tabloidy, or ignoring McQueen’s dark side. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 19, 2018
[A] sombre, thorough, intelligent and informative documentary. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyJul 19, 2018
For all its baroque pomp, though, McQueen intuits the one unspoken terror – loneliness – which nudged this fascinating artist into the void. Read full review
80
SlateInkoo KangJul 19, 2018
Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s smartest tactic — the one that makes McQueen such a pleasure to watch, even for fashion outsiders — is giving viewers a front-row seat to the runway, then letting us judge the designer’s oeuvre for ourselves. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJul 19, 2018
The filmmakers’ emphasis on drama honors the driven personality of their subject, while tracing a fairly conventional glad-rags-to-riches narrative arc. Read full review
80
EmpireAndrew LowryJun 18, 2018
A solid if, given its subject, oddly workmanlike documentary, this makes a very good case both that the fashion world had a genius on its hands, and that they didn’t have a clue what to do with him. Read full review
80
Screen DailyWendy IdeApr 27, 2018
Like McQueen’s designs, it is thrilling, troubling and tinged with tragedy. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisJul 27, 2018
This is a fascinating portrait of an artist. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonJul 20, 2018
This documentary is as welcoming to intense fashionistas as it is to gauche fools like me. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDiego SemereneJul 11, 2018
As Ian Bonhôte's documentary reveals, Alexander McQueen's suicide was perhaps the all-too-predictable ending to a history of violence. Read full review
67
IndieWireJude DryJul 20, 2018
The polished new documentary, McQueen, charts the late designer’s rise from English country boy to fashion’s enfant terrible, but the filmmaking lacks the artistic vision of its subject. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeChristopher MutherAug 1, 2018
Bonhôte and Ettedgui leave viewers winded from the pace of the ascent. But much the way we know that there was a rise, we also know a fall is imminent. This is where McQueen wobbles. Read full review
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