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Positive:
84
Mixed:
3
Negative:
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Critic Reviews
Mar 13, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The third season of the anthological miniseries, which debuts Sunday, March 12, is nothing short of breathtaking in the way it attempts to show every single level of economic comfort--or lack thereof--in and around a small North Carolina farming community. From migrant workers to big wheels in agribusiness, the season covers them all.
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Mar 8, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Each character, each interpersonal relationship is exquisitely nuanced, realistically detailed and fully unpredictable. ... In the four episodes made available to critics, John Ridley again proves that great television isn’t to be found only on cable and streaming platforms.
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Mar 6, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Every story in this constantly evolving season is a gripping winner. [10 Mar 2017, p.58]
TV Guide MagazineMar 2, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Incredibly timely and powerful drama. [6-19 Mar 2017, p.21]
Jan 6, 2016
Season 2 Review:
This is uncomfortable television about uncomfortable topics. And we could use more of it.... This way of constantly upending the viewers' own preconceptions saves the show when it seems a bit too preachy and on-the-nose. Television too often gets teenagers wrong--too perfect, too whiny, or too bratty--but the young actors here offer nuanced portrayals.
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Jan 5, 2016
Season 2 Review:
The desire to examine issues that commercial television generally avoids, and the ability to do so in a manner that is intellectually challenging and dramatically satisfying, remains the same. None of this could be achieved without the stellar returning members of this now-anthology’s cast, led by Felicity Huffman, Lili Taylor, Timothy Hutton, Elvis Nolasco and Regina King.... Each turns in a performance that is just as riveting as the first.
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Mar 4, 2015
Season 1 Review:
In lesser hands, the disruptive flourishes would come across as style for style's sake; here, disruption is the goal. And in a lesser show, the characters would come across as a collection of social "types," chosen to represent their assigned issues. Here, they come across as real, deeply flawed people caught in a system that seems to care for none of them.
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Mar 9, 2017
Season 3 Review:
It’s a compelling but also consistently depressing series, and, in its lack of gloss, unlike anything else on the prime time schedule. It’s not going to help matters that this season has exchanged some of American Crime’s clarity for more cloudiness, which I’m sure is Ridley’s intent.
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Mar 9, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The third season of ABC's outstanding American Crime manages to sidestep well-worn arguments about immigration and other hot-button topics with a set of compelling, interlocking stories that challenge viewers to see in new ways the people we so often manage not to see at all--migrant workers, teenage prostitutes, and opioid addicts--while giving a voice to others, like family farmers and small business owners, who have reason, too, to feel ignored.
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Mar 7, 2017
Season 3 Review:
What’s most striking about American Crime’s cocktail of hot topic themes is how well they blend into one another. The show takes its time in setting up each story layer by layer until one bleeds into the other proving how ultimately, it’s all part of the same flawed machine. This patience in storytelling is its greatest strength, as it also allows characters to have good and bad moments--to be human.
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Jan 6, 2016
Season 2 Review:
Scene for scene, it feels more attuned to the daily realities of life in 2016 America than any other drama on network TV. And because it’s a self-contained story that bears no relation to season one, you can jump right into it. I urge you to give it a shot if you aren’t already a fan. Just be patient. It’s one of those shows that needs a bit of time to work its peculiar magic.
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Jan 5, 2016Jan 5, 2016
Jan 4, 2016
Season 2 Review:
It all speaks to a level of ambition that has become increasingly rare in the broadcast spectrum, as if abdicating to cable this level of quality, or at least the willingness to tackle serious issues in such a nuanced manner.... For those with the patience to invest in it, missing out on American Crime would indeed be criminal.
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Mar 4, 2015Mar 4, 2015
Jan 6, 2016
Season 2 Review:
The adults' heated conversations can feel more like textbook debates than natural dialogue. But the acting is phenomenal. [8/15 Jan 2016, p.97]
Mar 13, 2017
Season 3 Review:
American Crime artfully follows several different narratives that end up moving through the same obstacle course but with very different outcomes. The buildup is slower here and requires more patience than the last two seasons, partly because this installment of American Crime is more ambitious and covers more terrain.
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The Daily BeastMar 10, 2017
Season 3 Review:
American Crime is nothing then if not ambitious. At times perhaps over-ambitious: a pace that’s too slow, a cast of characters too large, and too many points to make to possibly bring them all home. But watching to see which ones do strike you--well, we lied. That actually is fun.
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Mar 10, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The latest American Crime doesn't initially feel as strong dramatically as two prior editions, but the central premise -- and the show's underlying approach to explore an issue, sympathetically, through the perspective of disparate characters -- couldn't be timelier.
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Mar 9, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Yes, the series sometimes grows a bit preachy: This installment, like its predecessors, tends to indulge in extended scenes whose dialogue can sound as if it were from a PBS documentary or a newspaper exposé. But you have to admire the ability of Mr. Ridley and his actors to wrap the earnestness in a compelling package.
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Jan 26, 2016
Season 2 Review:
It’s more tightly focused on a case of rape at an Indiana private school in which every player--victim, victim’s mom, alleged perpetrator, school headmistress, bystanders--gets more than one chance to have his or her say. Its status as a work of pure fiction allows race, class and sexuality to shape the narrative in creative ways, and the characters are more than just placeholders for what we’d like to believe about the case.
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Jan 6, 2016
Season 2 Review:
By the end of the first hour you’re not entirely sure what happened or who is to blame, but you’re left with an unsettling feeling that even when the truth does surface the story won’t be tied up with a neat little bow as it would be in so many other crime dramas on television.
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Jan 4, 2016TV Guide MagazineJan 4, 2016
Season 2 Review:
Powerful new season. [4-17 Jan 2015, p.15]
Mar 5, 2015
Season 1 Review:
American Crime does a good job of using the police-procedural framework to give viewers a structure that’s familiar and compelling. But Ridley makes sure that that structure is also capacious enough to let the actors stretch out, and, at least over the course of the four episodes made available to critics, this yields at least two superb performances.
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Mar 3, 2015
Jan 5, 2016
Season 2 Review:
While these character traits represent the real heart of the story, there are times you feel that Ridley is making an instructional film for a corporate HR department. On paper, it’s good for him to break away from stereotyping, but he does it with such obviousness, he almost undermines the power of his story and of the show’s extraordinary performances.
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Mar 3, 2015
Season 1 Review:
Scenes unfold at a leisurely pace and are punctuated with visual flourishes that allow us to soak up moods and emotions. On the other hand, the show suffers from stretches of starchy dialogue, and the uneven pilot episode doesn't adequately deliver on the promise of what's to come.
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TV Guide MagazineFeb 26, 2015
Season 1 Review:
American Crime unfolds its troubling and gripping story over a broad urban canvas of racial disharmony, class animosity and familial dysfunction. [2 Mar 2015, p.12]
IndieWireMar 9, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Scenes incorporating state laws and statistically relevant studies feel forced, or at least more forced than what’s going on with these farms. Granted, there’s a danger lurking there, too, as back-to-back Emmy nominee Felicity Huffman’s character is in danger of becoming the “white savior” of the series.
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IndieWireJan 6, 2016
Season 2 Review:
Even if some moments ring true, too many deafening blows make the show's only impact comparable to blunt force trauma. American Crime has never met a bad choice it can't find a way to justify, and worse yet, it uses the worst moments as hooks to lure viewers to the next episode.
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IndieWireMar 5, 2015
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