When You're Strange
Abramorama | Release Date: April 9, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
9
Negative:
3
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
When You're Strange, a documentary history of the Doors directed by Tom DiCillo, is for people like me who can stumble onto the scrappiest Doors video on VH1 at 3 a.m. and sit there, mesmerized. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Offers a worshipful but insightful portrait of the group - centered, of course, on its charismatic front man. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Unhappy with what Oliver Stone did to Jim Morrison and the Doors in his 1991 biopic? Here’s the doc for you. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The Doors lit rock 'n' roll fires for only 54 months, having formed after Morrison met Manzarek in 1965, when both were UCLA film students. We get a sense of them as bandmates as they hang around backstage or rehearse, garage-band-style. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle Smith
A sometimes insightful, sometimes absurdly devotional but steadily engaging film. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Offers a mesmerizing, behind-the-music glimpse at a crucial and bizarre moment in rock history, and maybe in American cultural history, period. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
A must for Doors fans as the film attempts to disentangle the facts from the myths surrounding the legendary band. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
DiCillo overburdens When You're Strange, which is narrated by Johnny Depp, with a cliché barrage of achronological news events, including an unconscionable use of Robert Kennedy's death agony, but the archival Doors footage he has assembled is anything but banal. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith Uhlich
Like so many Doors chroniclers, DiCillo can’t help but fall under the singer’s spell; it’s understandable, but frustrating. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
As usual, the three instrumentalists (Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Robby Krieger) take a backseat to their gorgeous front man, though their nimble, idiosyncratic playing has aged much better than his pretentious poetry. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
The real reason to see the movie -- and it's reason enough -- is the trove of archival footage, which shows a star of almost impossible magnetism. Read full review
60
NPRMark Jenkins
Thanks to his major role in songwriting, Krieger is credited repeatedly, but the other two players recede as the band increasingly becomes The Jim Morrison Show. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The man inside that legend has yet to come into focus 40 years on. Morrison wanted the world and he wanted it now, and he got it. What When You’re Strange can’t admit is that he had no idea what to do next. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRandy Lewis
Distressingly short on creative spark or historical illumination. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Director Tom DiCillo does his damnedest to make his documentary about The Doors unwatchable, but the subject matter is too compelling--and the vintage footage too electrifying--to be completely worthless. Read full review
30
VarietyRob Nelson
The Lizard King is a bummer in When You're Strange, Tom DiCillo's disastrously inane documentary ode to reptilian rocker Jim Morrison and his mellower bandmates in the Doors. Read full review
30
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Muddled, pretentious assemblage of film clips of the band shot between 1966 and 1971. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Hartlaub
When You're Strange is a remedial Doors class, taught by a professor who sounds as if he's doing voiceovers for car commercials. Read full review
More From This Movie

55 Critic Reviews

8.1 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL