Val
Amazon Studios | Release Date: July 23, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatLorry KiktaAug 5, 2021
The film has a whimsical surreality to it, just like the actor himself. Read full review
90
IGNZaki HasanAug 18, 2021
Val is a refreshingly candid documentary that uses its title star’s impressive array of archival footage to delve into larger questions about the nature of stardom itself. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 23, 2021
The result is a documentary that keeps drawing you in, even when you think it’s keeping you at a certain distance, a one-of-a-kind portrait of a one-of-a-kind artist who, through good times and dreadful ones, has remained devoted to his art. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 20, 2021
Despite his health problems and a career that carried as many setbacks as triumphs, Kilmer comes across as a self-deprecating, thoughtful, likable and almost jovial figure with a wicked sense of humor and a deep appreciation of artists, writers, poets, actors, thinkers. Read full review
88
The Associated PressMark KennedyJul 20, 2021
Thanks to Kilmer’s relentless drive to document things, Val is a remarkably intimate film and a moving one, too. For a performer who has come off as chilly and difficult, this doc doesn’t counter those perceptions as much as explain them. Read full review
85
CNNBrian LowryJul 23, 2021
Val Kilmer joins the ranks of celebrities that fastidiously documented their lives via video, then shared that in documentary form. But Val feels more deeply personal and fascinating than most, catching its star in the wake of a terrible illness and exploring the "difficult" label he bore as an actor, one whose career choices didn't always serve him well. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 6, 2021
The result is undoubtedly a canny mediation on the vagaries of fame, but it feels more intimate and essential than that: a lifetime of searching and self-regard distilled, somehow, into a state of grace. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 10, 2021
Val is not a gloomy movie at all. Quite the opposite. It’s vibrant, quick, and alive, and Val Kilmer today makes for an entertaining guide, with his hammy facial gestures now doing double duty since he can’t talk. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenAug 2, 2021
Many actors hold their secrets and their craft close; Kilmer throws his out to the universe. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekJul 23, 2021
Val is a portrait of an actor who poured his all into his work. Only now can he see what it amounts to, and find some vindication in the truth that it was worth defending all along. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 21, 2021
Directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo are armed with seemingly endless self-shot footage for Val, a moving, fascinating portrait of the actor. But disarming is a better word for how Kilmer, reputedly a “difficult” actor, comes off. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyJul 11, 2021
The film could have been an indulgent memoir, a scrapbook of a major (if stunted) leading-man career. But seeing so much of it through Kilmer’s own viewfinder gives it both focus and poignancy. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenJul 11, 2021
The helmers don’t aim to be comprehensive. They achieve something better: a film that’s agile and alive — fitting for a portrait of a man who is driven to make art, however he can. Read full review
78
TheWrapSteve PondJul 11, 2021
Awkward at times and affecting at others, Val doesn’t come across as a story about acting – instead, it’s a pretty straightforward tour through Kilmer’s career with lots of mostly mild anecdotes along the way. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonJul 21, 2021
The Val Kilmer we meet has been in the arena, realizes he has been lucky despite the hard knocks, and has now achieved what we hope is a lasting peace. His physical voice might be gone, but his inner voice still has much to say. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubVikram MurthiJul 21, 2021
If you’re already a fan of Kilmer’s work, there’s clear value in watching him pal around as a young man on the brink of stardom or rehearse as Jim Morrison for The Doors. But for everyone else, Val can sometimes feel like an uncomplicated victory lap. Read full review
75
ObserverStephen GarrettJul 12, 2021
Val doesn’t tell the whole story, but it does give a fascinating glimpse into a very human trajectory through the gauntlet of fame and fortune. It’s a legacy totem for a deeply spiritual soul. Read full review
70
Paste MagazineBrianna ZiglerAug 5, 2021
As can be said of its real-life subject, Val is moving, inspiring, funny and fractured. It’s a look at the man and an expansion of the myth, revealing just as much as it continues to obscure. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJul 23, 2021
That dance of performance and being — mindsets committed artists don’t always manage smoothly — is what makes Val an appealing, at times even touching hodgepodge of the actor’s journey. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJul 22, 2021
More a self-portrait than a profile, Val tells the story of a Hollywood career with a candor that stops short of revelation. The tone is personal but not quite intimate, producing in the viewer a warm, slightly wary feeling of companionship. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonJul 11, 2021
Directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo let their subject tell his own story, resulting in a film that’s partly illuminating, sometimes self-indulgent and often quite touching. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanJul 11, 2021
What makes Val a good and heartfelt movie, rather than just some glorified movie-star-as-trashed-parody-of-himself piece of reality-show exploitation, is that Kilmer brings the film an incredible sense of self-awareness. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 23, 2021
This is the role that he’s been rehearsing for his entire life, and Val is far more rewarding if you think about it not as an autobiographical documentary, but rather as a film about an actor finding a way to express more through his characters than his characters were ever able to express through him. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 22, 2021
Val, while often tragic, is also a deeply spiritual film: a benediction of forgiveness for those that wronged him, and a mea culpa to those he has harmed (most especially, it seems, ex-wife Joanne Walley). Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJul 26, 2021
The film is most satisfying when it's just giving us details of Kilmer's philosophy of acting, which is uncompromising to the point of being exasperating, but lively, and ultimately preferable to the default attitude of so many straight male actors who denigrate their profession as trivial, or somehow unbecoming of an adult. Read full review
60
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJul 29, 2021
It is not a great film—its form is less personal than its substance, its revelations and insights come only intermittently. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearJul 26, 2021
Val is simply the reflections of an actor with a knack for self-documentation, who has seen better days but remains buoyant by the prospect of making art in one form or another. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJul 23, 2021
It’s pure hagiography and taken as that, it’s skillfully assembled, even stylishly so at times, and Kilmer’s insights into his art skirt just the right side of Inside the Actors Studio indulgence but as a portrait of a star known for his rough edges, it’s all far too smooth. Read full review
58
The PlaylistCharles BramescoJul 11, 2021
Scott and Poo have seized on one substantive idea in their portraiture of a singular personality reduced to a caricature of himself by posterity and duly reveal the sensitive artiste who always aspired to more than “Top Gun.” If only they did so with less straightforwardness and more authorial license. Read full review
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