Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

51 Birch Street

EMAILPRINTTruly Indie

51 Birch Street reviews
77
9.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Documentary

Written by: Doug Block
Amy Seplin

Directed by: Doug Block

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 18, 2006

Running Time: 90 minutes, Color

Origin: Germany / USA

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Mike Block, Mina Block, Kitty Block, Ellen Block, Karen Block Engwall, and Marjorie Silver

Both unexpectedly funny and heartbreaking, 51 Birch Street is the first-person account of Block’s unpredictable journey through a whirlwind of dramatic life-changing events: the death of his mother, the uncovering of decades of family secrets, and the ensuing reconciliation with his father. What begins as his own intimate, autobiographical story soon evolves into a broader meditation on the universal themes of love, marriage, fidelity and the mystery of family. (Copacetic Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Block's hypnotic documentary, among the finest of the year.

Read Full Review >
100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

51 Birch Street, like the best of the recent wave of personal documentaries, is both a compelling story and an eye-opening bit of social history.

Read Full Review >
91

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A warm and honest portrait of a marriage at its most mysterious, and ordinary.

Read Full Review >
88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Through haunting home movies, Mina's diaries and interviews with Mike, a raw, riveting portrait emerges of what a child sees in his parents' relationship and what lies beneath.

Read Full Review >
80

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Block, an experienced documentarian, does an outstanding job walking the knife-edge between personal and self-absorbed.

Read Full Review >
80

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Block has made a sad, delightful and half-accidental movie about his own parents.

Read Full Review >
80

Variety Eddie Cockrell

A tonal triumph of true-life storytelling told with equal measures of tension and redemption.

Read Full Review >
80

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Mr. Block has put his parents’ life, and his own, into this film with such warmth and candor that it may take more than one viewing to recognize it as a work of art.

Read Full Review >
80

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Open-minded, probing but never prurient, 51 Birch Street is much more than a portrait of suburban ennui. It's a loving, painful map of the gulf between thought and word, between word and deed, that props up good marriages, and sends bad ones to hell.

Read Full Review >
80

Los Angeles Times Sam Adams

What makes 51 Birch Street a moving revelation rather than a therapeutic exercise is Block's commitment to understanding his parents, Mike and Mina, on their own terms, regardless of what it does to his image of them.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The intimate history of Doug Block's parents becomes fodder for a broader look at family secrets in this complex documentary.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The film has a compelling way about it. All five of the immediate Block family members emerge in full and affecting portraits.

Read Full Review >
75

TV Guide Ken Fox

What's best about Block's documentary is how well he captures his own shifting perceptions.

Read Full Review >
70

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This isn't always adept as storytelling, and Block's coming to terms with his own denseness occasionally tries one's patience, but he manages to make the overall process of his reeducation fascinating and compelling.

Read Full Review >
70

Village Voice Melissa Levine

Begins shakily, with a naked self-consciousness that can be off-putting, but quickly develops into an absorbing and ever deepening drama.

Read Full Review >
42

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

The joys of watching a man carry out his own therapy onscreen are fairly limited.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.5 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use