No Man of God
RLJE Films | Release Date: August 27, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Film ThreatLorry KiktaJun 20, 2021
The script for this film is absolutely incredible. Read full review
80
The GuardianLeslie FelperinSep 9, 2021
Both actors contribute knife-sharp timing and the kind of intensity needed to make this essentially two-man setup work. Read full review
80
CineVueMartyn ConterioSep 5, 2021
No Man of God sets out to demystify serial killers and achieves its aim. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshAug 26, 2021
No Man of God is impeccably and carefully directed by Sealey, and the craft on display is remarkable. Read full review
76
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganAug 31, 2021
No Man of God ultimately benefits from a woman helming a story about Bundy, as it provides nuance to even the ancillary female presence in the killer’s circle, particularly when he actually confessed to his deeply misogynistic crimes. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 31, 2021
With much of the dialogue based on the actual conversations between killer and profiler, and Wood and Kirby turning in stellar work, No Man of God feels memorably, sometimes chillingly, real. Read full review
75
CNNBrian LowryAug 27, 2021
Because profiling and modern criminology were greatly influenced by this period, there is an intellectually stimulating side to all this that No Man of God mines. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleCarla MeyerAug 23, 2021
As good as both actors are, watching characters sitting around talking gets old. But the film perks up considerably midway through, becoming a taut beat-the-clock thriller as it covers the days just before Bundy’s 1989 execution, the tension lying in whether Ted will fulfill his 11th-hour promise to confess. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 23, 2021
Our leads have a toe-to-toe intensity that clicks in many scenes. Wood and Kirby are well-matched, with Kirby giving us the superiority complex that generations of post-Bundy Hollywood serial killers have affected, and Wood showing just how troubling this assignment becomes. Read full review
75
The PlaylistAndrew CrumpJun 19, 2021
No Man of God has a purpose: The truth. This isn’t a Ted Bundy movie, but rather a movie about Ted Bundy. Read full review
75
The Film StageChristian GallichioJun 19, 2021
Sealey’s film may not add up to a fully realized and coherent film, she has nevertheless made an engrossing feature that recontextualizes Bundy not as the alluring psychopath, but as a profoundly desperate figure, who craves attention. Read full review
70
Screen RantSarah Bea MilnerSep 4, 2021
Generally, No Man of God takes a more mature and nuanced look at human evil, rejecting the impulse to glorify or romanticize figures like Bundy, but also reminding audiences that moral corruption manifests in many forms. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanJun 19, 2021
Individual moments are gripping, and Kirby’s performance puts its queasy hooks in you, but the film, overall, has a scattershot momentum until the last act, set in 1989, when Bundy is about to be executed. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJun 19, 2021
It’s a chilling psychological inquiry that holds your attention for the duration. Read full review
68
TheWrapRobert AbeleAug 27, 2021
No Man of God may have been written by a man, but you can’t help feeling the reason this umpteenth examination of a modern devil works as well as it does is because, as a woman, Sealey knows where the exploitation traps are and avoids them by focusing on the people in her frame, their exchanges well-paced by editor Patrick Nelson Barnes. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerAug 26, 2021
Director Amber Sealey gives the last word to Hagmaier, not Bundy. It's subtle, and may not be enough for the growing group of critics and viewers that worry that the cinematic obsession with serial killers ends up lionizing them, but it makes Bundy what he always was: pathetic. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergAug 26, 2021
For anyone who has heard audio of Bundy, Kirby’s impersonation will sound chillingly close to the real killer’s deadened, yet at times disturbingly raffish, cadence. Wood is persuasive, too, although Kit Lesser’s script writes the character as a cliché. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellAug 23, 2021
No Man of God doesn't tell us anything about Ted Bundy we didn't already know, but it's a riveting drama anchored by two phenomenal performances from Luke Kirby and Elijah Wood. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 27, 2021
It’s all the more disappointing when a techno-driven montage of dark imagery kicks in or some other choice that feels cheaper than this movie needed to be. No Man of God ultimately sinks into the shadows of so many similar and superior projects, and it feels cheap. It just doesn’t have enough to add to the conversation or a strong enough artistic POV to justify its shallowness. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloAug 24, 2021
Sealey, whose formal touch often flirts with cliché (lots of circling around Hagmaier and Bundy, with one man’s face temporarily obscured by the back of the other’s head), pointedly reminds us of Bundy’s many victims, even though none of them are shown. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineMark HansonAug 23, 2021
As an exploration of the misogyny that drove Bundy’s crimes, Amber Sealey’s film mostly falls short of its potential. Read full review
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