To Be and to Have
New Yorker Films | Release Date: September 19, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Nothing momentous happens here, but Philibert has a magical sense of how to find the simple poetry lurking in the universal routine of being a kid. A lot of the film's lyricism is extracurricular. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
So superb, so graceful, so strong -- another beauty in this year of good documentaries -- that I do believe it will influence career choices, sending inspired viewers to study pedagogy, or cinematography. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Hypnotically absorbing film. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Little miracles spring up throughout this picture. Read full review
100
The DissolveNoel Murray
This movie is a portal, leading to a living museum of childhood at its most poignant. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianKaren Karbo
Watching a group of kindergartners learning to crack an egg into a bowl is hardly the stuff of drama, and yet watching it, you suspect that something important is happening. And it is. Read full review
90
VarietyLisa Nesselson
Any negative stereotypes viewers might harbor about education in rural communities are sent packing by this magnificently lensed and cumulatively touching account from documaker Nicolas Philibert. Read full review
90
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
"You'll have to be patient." Philibert said, "That's the point." This is the film's success: its patience, which in a way mirrors the teacher's. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It is, simply and stirringly, a kind of beau ideal of education, a vision of how the process can work at its best.
90
SalonCharles Taylor
This heart-wrenching documentary about a French village schoolteacher at work offers the comedy and pathos of great drama and the visual magnificence of painting. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
To Be and To Have works in the grandest tradition of documentary filmmaking -- it keeps company with a small, specific place going about its business, and from it parses the whole world. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Amounts to a rare gift and an opportunity to appreciate the end of an era and celebrate one of the screen's most subtly etched heroes: the soft-spoken Monsieur Georges Lopez. Read full review
88
New York PostMegan Lehmann
One of the year's most engaging films. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Exhibiting the same sort of patience as his sensible hero, Philibert has created an extraordinarily humane portrait of a partnership between one adult and his very fortunate charges. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A deceptively simple French film about teaching that keeps enlarging as you watch it, becoming beautiful and inspiring in a way most films never touch. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Gradually and inexorably, the small crises of the children assume a poignant dramatic profluence, and the soothing patience of the teacher begins to have an almost hypnotically balming effect on the viewer. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The emotional honesty of this movie rescues it from sentimentality. To Be and to Have is about more than a dedicated teacher and his pupils; it’s about how difficult and exhilarating it is to grow into an adult. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Full of observed life, the movie is also a bit of a vacuum, and once we register our admiration for Lopez, we can hardly help contemplating the cold equations of the students' futures, their uneducated families, and the rapturously desolate farmland around them. Read full review
80
The New York TimesDana Stevens
The interest of To Be and to Have, though, is not sociological: it is not really about the French educational system, rural life or even the way children learn. It is, rather, the portrait of an artist, a man whose work combines discipline and inspiration and unfolds mysteriously and imperceptibly. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
A deeply satisfying aesthetic and pedagogic experience--though Americans may find themselves wondering how such terrific children can grow into such irritating adults.
80
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Part of what makes a great documentary great is the subject, and though the film never scrapes below the surface of the schoolteacher -- we never find out if he lives alone or has children of his own -- Lopez pulls as hard on the imagination as a fictional character. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
An early shot of two turtles crawling through the classroom establishes the film's deliberate pace, and To Be And To Have benefits from the care. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
For better and for worse, this is seductive storytelling as well as investigative journalism, and I wasn't always sure which mode I was in. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
100 minutes spent watching children struggle and delight in learning is, at least in my book, 100 minutes happily spent. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleJonathan Curiel
Gets its punch from simple scenes and conversations. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Simple but deeply touching documentary. Read full review
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