The Ivory Game
Netflix | Release Date: November 4, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberNov 1, 2016
What is admirable about Ivory Game is that it recognizes the complexity of the issues. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnNov 1, 2016
The Ivory Game may be a harsh wakeup call to anyone concerned about the future of the largest land mammal, but it’s also a keen evaluation of the efforts being made to correct the situation. Read full review
80
CineVueMatthew AndersonNov 3, 2016
The Ivory Game depicts humankind both at its deplorable worst and at its best. Its burning images will sear through conscience and consciousness but there is faint hope in the lasting hoof-print they leave. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 1, 2016
Brings a new urgency to an old subject: the ivory trade, which is threatening the world’s elephants. This threat has not been cancelled or brought under control, as I had assumed. The film persuasively argues that it is all but out of control: so much so that elephants are in danger of being wiped out in the wild in just a matter of years. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireNov 4, 2016
The resulting feeling of outrage will spur viewers into action. Read full review
75
The Film StageJared MobarakNov 3, 2016
While the movie provides common sense scenarios, its success lies in putting faces to the issue. It highlights heroes and villains to transform abstract numbers into human beings. That power trumps any lack of cinematic brilliance because this type of documentary seeks exposure and potential hope. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredRobert Yaniz Jr.Nov 8, 2016
While The Ivory Game's ambitiously broad look at the illegal ivory trade takes on a bit more than it needs to, it does shed some definite light on a growing global problem. Read full review
70
The New York TimesKen JaworowskiNov 3, 2016
While more information on the animals and their ecosystems is needed, the stakes described here are immense, as is the sorrow over majestic creatures massacred only so that their tusks can be made into baubles. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenNov 3, 2016
The grim economic realities behind such trafficking are glancingly acknowledged. There’s real impact, though, in the anger and grief of law enforcement officials and conservationists when their tracking leads them to elephant carcasses. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanNov 1, 2016
There are moments when the movie tugs at your heart, but the subject matter, because it’s so epic, deserves an even more probing and definitive treatment. Read full review
70
TheWrapRobert AbeleSep 3, 2016
It’s a wealth of information The Ivory Game vitally offers, and action it means to incite. That may well be enough to get audiences involved. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 2, 2016
Unlike a lot of other advocacy docs—films that seek to raise awareness regarding some serious issue, often concluding with a call to action—Netflix’s The Ivory Game offers something spectacularly visual: elephants. Read full review
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