Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: September 4, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 4, 2015
The accounting of his life story, as it unfolds in the film, is grounded in the brutal realities of corporate skulduggery. I’m a big fan of Balzac’s maxim that “behind every great fortune is a great crime,” and if nothing in Jobs’s history qualifies as a great crime, there is certainly a long trail of extreme misdeeds. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonSep 1, 2015
Gibney dissects Jobs's image with the calm curiosity of a coroner. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 3, 2015
Brings home the complexities and contradictions of the man. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 25, 2015
Gibney uses interviews, fresh and archival, and a court deposition and reporters’ memories of long-exposure to Jobs for his evidence. And it’s damning, from the financial cheating to the lack of philanthropy to the arrogance that let him think he knew better than modern medicine how to treat his cancer. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 7, 2015
Little here is new, but the archival footage is well chosen, the interviewees are illuminating, and Gibney, as usual, potently synthesizes what’s out there. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierSep 3, 2015
What this rich film does go into — in a lengthy tangent that’s less punchy but important — is the impropriety Jobs trafficked in when he allowed himself and high-ranking Apple-ers to be granted backdated stock options. They got wealthy as their product was being made, amid some scandal, for a pittance in China. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranSep 3, 2015
While the filmmaker's trademark mixture of talking heads, archival footage and investigative ethos is familiar, Gibney is certainly good at what he does, and "Steve Jobs" is at its best in providing a brisk summation of the man's life. Or, more accurately, lives, for Jobs seemed to have been more people than one would have thought possible. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 3, 2015
Although this movie isn’t as well-made as Gibney’s best work, like “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” or the Oscar-winning “Taxi to the Dark Side,” it’s plenty interesting, and serves as something of an appetizer for Danny Boyle’s biopic “Steve Jobs,” due Oct. 9. Read full review
80
The GuardianAlex NeedhamApr 14, 2015
Gibney’s film concludes that Jobs had the monomaniacal focus of a monk but none of the empathy of one, and it makes a powerful case. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireSep 4, 2015
Gibney made his film without the cooperation of Jobs’ wife and their children or Apple, and thus his account doesn’t have either the authorized angle or wealth of insider-ish detail of Walter Isaacson’s capacious biography. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatySep 3, 2015
What the movie actually could’ve used less of is Gibney, whose faux-pensive voice-overs are meant to push the story forward, but more often make your eyeballs roll backward. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianJeff BakerSep 3, 2015
Rather than explore and embrace the contradictions within Jobs ("he had the focus of a monk but none of the empathy" is the best he can do), Gibney puts the hammer down. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanSep 3, 2015
The picture that emerges is fractured, making for a portrait that’s as fascinating as it is baffling. Read full review
70
The New York TimesNicolas RapoldSep 3, 2015
If this isn’t the iPhone of documentaries, it gets its point across, and unlike Mr. Gibney’s Scientology exposé “Going Clear,” this movie has a harder target (albeit with its own devoted following). Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeApr 14, 2015
Gibney is convincing on every front. And while Apple (big surprise) refused to cooperate — meaning that key players like Jony Ive and Tim Cook are all but invisible in this story — he gets enough of Jobs' collaborators on camera to lend emotional color to the portrait. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangApr 14, 2015
A coolly absorbing, deeply unflattering portrait of the late Silicon Valley entrepreneur that expands, not altogether convincingly, into a meditation on our collective over-reliance on our favorite handheld gadgets. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 3, 2015
One of the director’s more superficial efforts; it’s watchable but glib. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNoel MurraySep 2, 2015
As an expression of the filmmaker’s own sense of guilt over buying into the Apple myth, this picture intends to be a bummer. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineClayton DillardAug 31, 2015
A work of arduous assemblage that values information over affect and zip over conviction in its ramshackle historicizing of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid EhrlichSep 2, 2015
The film quickly abandons any sort of broader cultural interest in favor of a typical womb-to-tomb, warts-and-all examination of recent history’s most visionary CEO. Read full review
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