The Summit
IFC Films | Release Date: October 4, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanOct 10, 2013
The Summit does an amazing job of putting you on the mountain, making it one of the most terrifying horror films a climber or an acrophobe could ever see. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 3, 2013
The Summit tells a multifaceted story that deals with more than the expected peril and exhilaration of adventure tales. Here you'll find love, fear and forgiveness, personality conflicts and cultural differences, even mysteries that have stubbornly resisted solving. Read full review
80
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerOct 3, 2013
The film over all is a pulse-pounding success. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid FearOct 1, 2013
As you watch these actors, you appreciate the endeavor the climbers went through all the more — and as triumph turns to tragedy, you feel the grief winding its way through your shaken nervous systems. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 10, 2013
It’s a measure of the movie’s success that we never stop to question how or when the trickery is employed. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNick SchagerOct 2, 2013
The proceedings somewhat sidestep the issues of risk and responsibility—including the raised, but never fully tackled, question of whether others should have gone back to try to save their fellow, trapped compatriots—that seem most in need of investigation. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 4, 2013
I wish the film had probed more deeply into why anybody would face those odds. George Mallory’s “Because it’s there” has never quite cut it for me. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyOct 25, 2013
The Summit is a mixture of the inventive and the misguided in its attempt to recreate the circumstances of the August, 2008, disaster on the world’s second-highest mountain, K2, when 11 climbers were killed. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 11, 2013
There is a lot of finger-pointing. Assertions are made, theories offered, but not much in the way of certainty. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 10, 2013
Because The Summit jumps around in time and because the events on the mountain happened over two days and at locations often far apart, the already garbled chronology of deaths is made even more confusing. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierOct 3, 2013
Interviews with survivors fill us in on the personalities of the lost, but the background of K2, with archival footage from 1954, is equally gripping. Read full review
60
The DissolveAndrew LapinOct 1, 2013
Though Ryan and Monroe prove adept at the film’s most elemental factors, they don’t offer enough backstory or characterization. Read full review
60
Village VoiceChuck WilsonOct 1, 2013
The Summit is at its most powerful when the filmmakers simply tell the tale, which gradually develops the unsettling suspense of a horror movie, with K2 cast as the implacable killer. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoOct 17, 2013
First-time director Nick Ryan isn’t entirely up to the challenge in The Summit, but he does deliver some dramatic and visual highs in the attempt. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesBruce IngramOct 10, 2013
Unfortunately, the film’s more moving and memorable moments are mixed in with a king-size (if not quite K2-size) jumble of too much information. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovOct 16, 2013
It’s still a hellish glimpse into one of climbing’s worst days ever, and there’s no way to resolve the unresolvable, but as it is The Summit, like K2 itself, remains an icily beautiful and altogether deadly mystery. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaOct 10, 2013
Nick Ryan’s documentary looks at the disaster by using interviews, actual footage and re-enactments. The latter move undercuts some of the movie’s authenticity. Granted, there probably wasn’t another way to film it, but it muddies the film’s sense of truth. Read full review
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