Worth
Netflix | Release Date: September 3, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
10
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
IndieWireKate ErblandJan 28, 2020
While Worth is most literally concerned with a stupefying question — what is a life worth? — it’s more precisely about the price of calculating such a wrenching ask. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleSep 2, 2021
What we’re left with is, thankfully, sharp exchanges about loss and conscience, a director’s sincere approach to potentially melodramatic material, and in-the-moment actors like Keaton, who makes the humbling weight of adding up lives into the stuff of compellingly sober contemplation. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleSep 2, 2021
What we’re left with is, thankfully, sharp exchanges about loss and conscience, a director’s sincere approach to potentially melodramatic material, and in-the-moment actors like Keaton, who makes the humbling weight of adding up lives into the stuff of compellingly sober contemplation. Read full review
80
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergSep 2, 2021
For all the ways in which it might give short shrift to the politics or policy of the fund, Worth is uncommonly moving by the standards of biopics and certainly by the standards of movies that risk addressing 9/11 so overtly. Read full review
80
SlashfilmBen PearsonJan 28, 2020
By humanizing the events of such a huge tragedy, Sara Colangelo shines a light on both the victims and the forgotten bystanders who were left behind, opening that closed-off compartment once more and bringing those folks back to the forefront. Read full review
80
The GuardianBenjamin LeeJan 28, 2020
It’s all so human and messy and it’s refreshing to see a director that doesn’t shy away from such complexity with Colangelo crafting a film that’s every bit as nuanced as the subject at hand. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzSep 7, 2021
Worth seems to get it, all of it, in a way that films of this type rarely do, which makes it all the more irritating when it appears to retreat from the implications of the way it's telling its complex narrative. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleSep 2, 2021
A story about the victims of Sept. 11 maybe ought not to focus on a lawyer dispensing the cash. But Keaton — a truly great actor in his responsiveness to those around him — makes a compelling, initially tone-deaf listener to the stories that filter through Worth. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsSep 17, 2021
Watching the bureaucracy shift from a source of frustration to comfort gives the film its arresting tension. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellAug 31, 2021
Worth is a fairly routine biographical political procedural, elevated massively by fantastic performances from Michael Keaton and Stanley Tucci. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJan 29, 2020
Colangelo grapples with all that is unfixed in this story with wise consideration. Worth finds its ultimate value in accepting what the film, and we, cannot ever determine for certain. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJan 28, 2020
There are enough diverse personalities in this unexpected film to generate a degree of interest in a subject few have probably ever thought about. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 5, 2021
Sad to say that adults in positions of authority acting like adults — diplomatic, courteous — is the most refreshing historical artifact resurrected in Worth. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 2, 2021
Worth falls just short of having enough strength in the screenplay to warrant a recommendation. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneySep 2, 2021
This is not the most promising dramatic material — legal and actuarial material, yes, dramatic, no. Yet Worth manages to combine process and emotion in a way that works. Read full review
60
Screen RantSarah Bea MilnerSep 3, 2021
Had its story structure been stronger, Worth could have an Oscar contender. As it is, Worth is an interesting testament to a particularly harrowing period of time — one that, for many, still feels a little too raw. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Simran HansAug 29, 2021
Though this stolid drama, based on a true case, begins as a procedural, about systems, processes and deadlines, it is most absorbing when it zeroes in on one man’s moral arc. Read full review
60
Screen DailyAnthony KaufmanJan 28, 2020
Proficiently directed by Sara Colangelo (The Kindergarten Teacher), well-acted by Keaton and co-star Amy Ryan as Feinberg’s deputy Camille Biros, and made with the respect and reverence that its subject deserves, Worth nevertheless remains a bit too stolid and too on-the-nose. Read full review
58
Paste MagazineJacob OllerSep 7, 2021
A story that could truly individualize a massive, era-defining tragedy. In this telling, however, you’ll follow the plot and shed some appropriate tears, but if you come away feeling cheap, you won’t be alone. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyAug 31, 2021
The film, however, struggles to make a point under Colangelo’s stolid direction, losing itself in thinly drawn subplots while trying to give an unconvincing feel-good redemption arc to Feinberg, a character who is neither very interesting nor very sympathetic. The result feels, perversely, unearned and a little cheap. Read full review
58
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodJan 28, 2020
At almost two-hours Worth somehow feels almost twice as long. Granted, we understand it’s a cliché to describe a film in such terms, but Colangelo and Borenstein are trying to cover too much ground that is, for lack of a better word, repetitive. Read full review
58
The Film StageDan MeccaJan 28, 2020
Colangelo is a strong director of actors, but Borenstein’s script lets her down a bit. Read full review
50
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiSep 5, 2021
When viewed with both eyes open, Worth is a thematically confusing motion picture, no matter how good the acting is. If the film exists to sell us on how great the fund was, it blew it, because we’re left with troubling and unanswered questions. If the film exists to raise those questions, it cops out by resorting to treacly melodrama. And it cannot effectively do both. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 2, 2021
Those confessionals can and should deliver an emotional wallop; however, Sara Colangelo’s direction isn’t skillful or nuanced enough to give the scenes power. The speeches from actors, such as Laura Benanti, about the worst day in all of these people’s lives feel too rehearsed and polished for us to believe them. Read full review
50
VarietyAmy NicholsonJan 28, 2020
Though Feinberg is a singular figure in modern American history (few else could, or would, do his job), Worth hammers his story into a standard biopic template — Grinch Finds Heart — as though one man discovering empathy is truly priceless. Read full review
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