Leonardo da Vinci
  • Network: PBS
  • Series Premiere Date: Nov 18, 2024
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10

Critic Reviews

  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    Nov 15, 2024
    100
    Visually thrilling. .... It is likely that the master himself would have approved of this grand vision.
  2. Newsday
    Reviewed by: Verne Gay
    Nov 15, 2024
    100
    Magnificent.
  3. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    Nov 15, 2024
    90
    It is ambitious, musically, visually and intellectually. Directed by Mr. Burns, daughter Sarah Burns and David McMahon, “Leonardo da Vinci” is always a feast for the eyes and often enough for the mind.
  5. Decider
    Reviewed by: Joel Keller
    Nov 18, 2024
    80
    Leonardo Da Vinci breathes new life into the artist’s legend; Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon have painted a pretty complete picture of a man who was much more than the sum of his most famous works.
  6. The Hollywood Reporter
    Nov 18, 2024
    80
    A project that isn’t really enlightening about da Vinci as a person, but explores the polymath’s intellectual and artistic processes in a way that’s effectively cumulative and often fascinating.
  7. The Daily Beast
    Reviewed by: Jordan Hoffman
    Nov 18, 2024
    80
    Bursting with fascinating tidbits, but it also does a good job of explaining why each of the maestro’s brushstrokes was innovative and important.
  8. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Margaret Lyons
    Nov 18, 2024
    70
    A thorough and engrossing biography that can’t help but feel incomplete, so vast and unusual is its subject.
  9. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Christopher Knight
    Nov 18, 2024
    70
    Rather too much time is spent repeating staged close-ups of a left hand sketching in ink or applying paint, or else executing inscrutable mirror-writing on parchment — Leonardo’s secretive signature method — coupled with explanatory voice-over. .... Part 2, “Painter-God,” is the more satisfying, zeroing in on the experimentation that drove his unique art and engineering, which fantasized flying machines, weapons of war and designs for urban infrastructure.