Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: June 17, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
5
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
85
MovielineStephanie ZacharekJun 16, 2011
While the media desk isn't the whole of the New York Times, it does give Rossi a solid perch from which to survey the paper's recent and ongoing struggle for both relevancy and revenues. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn LevyJun 30, 2011
It's a bit insidery, yes, but isn't it a treat to be brought inside a hidden world by a movie? Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumJun 15, 2011
It's not quite the same thrill as glimpsing the man behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz, but for journalism junkies, the fascination of Page One: Inside The New York Times is something like that. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJun 17, 2011
Emphasizing the importance of new media, Stelter is ready to bring the paper back to the future, though this terrific tale of an establishment in transition ultimately plays like "All the President's Men," with the intrigue coming from inside the building. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirJun 16, 2011
Rossi's film makes a compelling case on behalf of the traditional values of journalism. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJul 7, 2011
The movie is slick and entertaining, but much of it is as superficial as a Twitter post. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreJul 2, 2011
Zeroing in on Carr as the movie's "hero" was a smart move. He comes off as smart, confrontational and unconventional. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJul 1, 2011
Given the turbulent water of world affairs and sea changes in the media, a follow-up a year from now might be titled "Gray Lady Down" if the Times does not chart a new course. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 30, 2011
Those of you who don't work for a newspaper may also be interested in what it's like on the inside - how stories are generated, how editors and writers interact, etc. For what it's worth, it's an accurate portrait. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJun 30, 2011
What is their passion for? Not newspapers, or even a single newspaper, per se, but for journalism itself, the practice of which is nowhere stronger than at the Times. That, at least, is how Page One argues it. It's a compelling argument. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 30, 2011
As eye-opening as this movie is, the real story is outside the Times building, in the browser windows and iPads of me and you and everyone we know. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJun 30, 2011
I enjoyed the film very much. It was a visceral pleasure to see a hard-boiled guy like David Carr at its center. Read full review
75
NPRBob MondelloJun 17, 2011
Page One is an insider's view, but if it isn't raking up any muck, it's not a love letter either. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 16, 2011
Page One is a vital, indispensable hell-raiser. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasJun 16, 2011
Rossi never gets around to exploring his opening question: What would the world be without The New York Times? Perhaps, as with a lot of his subjects here, the answer is just too painful to consider, no matter the economic realities. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJoseph Jon LanthierJun 13, 2011
Andrew Rossi's documentary allows The New York Times a kind of nail-biting self-portraiture as it peers off the precipice of (hopefully) a 2.0 rebirth. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 23, 2011
Though it's blessed with a strong subject and some memorable characters and situations, the drawback of this fitfully engaging documentary is that it can't settle on anything even close to a single theme or line of inquiry. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazineRay GreeneJun 15, 2011
Whether Rossi's cautious optimism about the future of a legendary but troubled journalistic institution is justifiable is a story yet to be written, but Page One assures us that if the paper goes down, it will go down swinging. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. HobermanJun 14, 2011
Opens with a montage of the press in full operational mode, spewing out newspapers all but automatically for a fleet of waiting delivery trucks. It's a system at once efficient and cumbersome, ultra-modern yet quaint, that suggests nothing so much as a herd of dinosaurs, oblivious to the threat of impending extinction. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangJun 12, 2011
This efficiently assembled primer hardly counts as a revelatory dispatch from the old-vs.-new-media frontlines, but its ideas will engross anyone for whom the viability of traditional newsgathering remains a matter of pressing significance. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJul 2, 2011
With all the talk in Page One about the demise of print journalism and the rise of new media, this shiny spacious emporium seems like both a beacon and a staggering folly. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJun 30, 2011
(It should also be noted that Page One wears its pro-Times bias on its sleeve, right up to the rankling but now-common inclusion of a "get involved" Web address at film's end.) Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen ColeJul 7, 2011
Alas, the filmmaker, maybe because he had to account for every week of his more than year-long visit to the Times, has crowded his film with too many subplots and way, way too many cameos of all the usual suspects, wringing their hands over what will become of newspapers. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJun 30, 2011
The paper's motto is "All the News That's Fit to Print." But all that news doesn't necessarily fit neatly into a 90-minute doc. Read full review
60
EmpireDavid ParkinsonSep 19, 2011
Ironically, it lacks journalistic rigour but it's a fond, nostalgic look at the gilded history of the Grey Lady. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesJun 30, 2011
As an avid media watcher, I didn't come away from this with any new insights, but the movie is a pretty good snapshot of the daily newspaper business in transition and turmoil. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 30, 2011
The film is interesting and at times enlightening, but it's all over the map. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith UhlichJun 14, 2011
The falsely euphoric close is a big misstep - Pulitzers, it would seem, are the ultimate Band-Aid. What was that old adage about printing the legend? Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensJun 17, 2011
The film spends too much time wringing its hands over the all-too-evident fact that journalism is in crisis, when it could be documenting that crisis from the inside. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickJun 17, 2011
Basically a carefully airbrushed and authorized portrait of the Gray Lady during 14 months when there was serious speculation about the paper's impending demise. Read full review
30
The New York TimesMichael KinsleyJun 16, 2011
The movie's main theme, no surprise, is the struggle of The Times to survive in the age of the Internet. But it does little to illuminate that struggle, preferring instead a constant parade of people telling the camera how dreadful it would be if The Times did not survive. True, of course, but boring to the point of irritation after five or six repetitions. Read full review
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