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Capitalism: A Love Story

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 123 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by: Michael Moore
Directed by: Michael Moore
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 23, 2009
DVD: March 9, 2010
Running Time: 120 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for some language
Capitalism: A Love Story explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore has described as the biggest robbery in the history of this country--the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions. (Overture Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Bowling for Columbine Fahrenheit 9/11 Sicko
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
After watching the bailouts, the bank foreclosures and the Bernie Madoffs of the world dominate headlines, Michael Moore is mad as hell, and he's going to try to make you mad as hell, too.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The film's title is never explained. What does Moore mean? Maybe it's that capitalism means never having to say you're sorry.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Moore's fireball of a movie could change your life. It had me laughing with tears in my eyes.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Elias Savada
He's preaching a story we must all hear. This is no fairy tale.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The symmetry doesn't work. Capitalism is an economic system; democracy, a political system. Perhaps Moore should have come out and said what he really wants to see us adopt: a democratic socialism.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Impassioned, informative and entertaining, if sometimes repetitive.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The real love story here is between Moore and his bullhorn.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
This lively, infuriating and occasionally moving film certainly leaves you thinking, and there isn't a dead spot in it. That's the mark of a real filmmaker, not just a muckraker.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Capitalism lacks the surprising wit of “Roger & Me” and the sobering comparative journalism of “Sicko,” and it isn’t nearly as heartfelt as “Columbine,” which poignantly and repeatedly circled back to Moore’s beloved home state of Michigan.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli
No matter where you stand, there's no denying "Capitalism" is flat-out polemic wizardry.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
With mixed results, Moore singles out those who profit from the misery of American workers.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Vintage Moore, which means that it will enthrall many and enrage an equal number of viewers.
Read Full Review >Premiere Mark Salisbury
With the global economic meltdown affecting just about everybody, the film is pertinent, hugely entertaining, and, above all, timely.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
At its best, Capitalism: A Love Story is a searing outcry against the excesses of a cutthroat time. At its worst, it's dorm-room Marxism.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Deborah Young
This is a typical Moore oeuvre: funny, often over the top and of dubious documentation, but with strongly made points that leave viewers much to ponder and debate after they walk out of the theater.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Too bad its wide net ultimately results in diminishing returns.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Like most of his movies, Capitalism is a tragedy disguised as a comedy; it’s also an entertainment.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Moore's scattershot is a lot more interesting than some filmmakers' focus, and many of those individual parts are classic.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
There's something touching, even a little bit noble, about Moore's eternal willingness to serve as our nation's shame-free populist gadfly.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A freewheeling denunciation of the capitalist system that is often mordantly funny and, by lurching turns, scornful, rambling, repetitive, impassioned, mock-lofty, pseudo-lowbrow, faux-naïve, persuasive, tabloid-shameless and agit-prop-powerful.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
On one level: groan. On another: No one else seems about to make those arrests. The only thing that would scare Wall Street straight is the image of Michael Moore as the new sheriff in town.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
Moore's voice is weak and fuzzy, directed at a choir that should already know the words by heart.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Redundant for a filmmaker whose work has always dealt with the dismaying consequences of this country’s profit motive. Isn’t every Michael Moore film ultimately about capitalism? This one just has a more facetious title.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
At its best, this uneven work represents Moore at the peak of his argumentative skills.
Read Full Review >Empire Damon Wise
A barbed study of the American economy puts capitalism in the dock but somehow fails to convict.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York David Fear
Delivers Moore’s usual grab bag of ironic kitsch, gotcha clips and infotainment-journalism.
Read Full Review >Variety Leslie Felperin
Whether Capitalism matches "Fahrenheit 9/11" or underperforms like "Sicko" will depend on how much workers of the world are ready to unite behind the message.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
The tone is so smart-ass that it’s bound to put a lot of viewers into a default defensive posture.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
Scattershot, lazy slice of agitprop, which recycles Moore's usual slice-and-dice job on corporations, while bobbing a curtsey to the current crisis.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Exhibits the weaknesses and the strengths of what has become a nearly foolproof formula for keeping viewers engaged.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
As a statement on capitalism or anything else, Capitalism: A Love Story is often embarrassingly simplistic, self-contradictory.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
This time the acclaimed filmmaker tackles an entire “ism” and, much like its ambiguous title, Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore’s film is an unmethodical survey of a gargantuan topic, one that has only grown more so in the year since he began work on the project.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
By the end, when Moore presents himself as a lone crusader for justice and wraps yellow crime-scene tape around the AIG building, his reasoning is so muddled that he can’t distinguish an economic system (corporate capitalism) from a political one (representative democracy).
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
This is a love story, all right, but it has less to do with the flaws of capitalism than it does with Moore's unwavering fondness for the sound of his own voice, and for what he perceives as his own vast cleverness.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Shouldn’t Moore run his yellow crime-scene tape around the White House instead of Wall Street? Anyway, President Obama said this month that in cases where the government has fully sold its TARP bank holdings, it has gotten back its money plus 17 percent. Damn those capitalist barons, breaking into our treasury and filling it with their filthy money.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 123 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Brian gave it a10:
Very impressive and engaging pastiche of images and personal testimonies. His interviewees, particularly the families who have lost everything, are the driving force of the narrative. I appreciated this film as the culmination of Moore's general argument about corporate victimization which has underlain his previous entries. A tour-de-force of documentary filmaking, and a career-defining film.
Yevgeni S gave it a1:
Michael Moore knows about as much about how REAL corporations are run as most Hollywood writers: Nothing at all. At least he doesn't depict evil CEOs plotting to murder the reporter who has discovered they are dumping dangerous chemicals in the water supply of the city they live in (as TV shows do), but on the other hand, a class in basic Economics seems to be in order here.
Tim S gave it a0:
Michael Moore never quite gets to the point in this movie, and that alone makes it worthless.
Beth C. gave it a7:
This is perhaps one of Moore's less focused films, and his performance art (such as wrapping the crime scene tape around the AIG Building) doesn't work for me. Yet parts of this film are certainly thought-provoking, even for those who don't completely agree with Moore's politics. Isn't it frightening that many of our airline pilots are barely making $20,000 per year and need to hold down second jobs? The footage of Franklin Roosevelt is fascinating. And it does end with some positive notes - the account of the recent sit down strike in Chicago, for example. Even if Moore isn't at his best, he still manages to be entertaining.
John V gave it a2:
Would it be too capitalistic to ask for my money back? Moore comes off as a fake and a phony. Do as I say not as I do kinda guy. Movie wanders and makes little sense.
Pedro gave it a0:
MM craves on conspiracy theory maniacs and fills is pockets with all of "you". Is worst then the things he talk about.
r c gave it a1:
Boring!
