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Billy the Kid
Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
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  1. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    100
    In the end, Bill emerges as someone truly unique and someone who we feel privileged to know.
  2. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    83
    If the film has a significant flaw, it's that Venditti never explains in the film how she found Billy, or why she's interested in him. Billy The Kid often plays more like an extended home movie than something intentional and artful.
  3. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    80
    But what you ultimately take from the film is the awareness that this smart, self-aware, uncensored kid has been playing to a camera in his own head since well before Venditti came along.
  4. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    In her directorial debut, Venditti does her best to keep a distance between herself and her subjects. But you have to wonder how much of the Billy we see on-screen is affected by the presence of Venditti's camera.
  5. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    A heartbreaking vérité documentary by Jennifer Venditti about a misfit Maine teenager--a film that makes you think about (and question) what fitting in really entails.
  6. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Julia Wallace
    70
    I have seen more than 25 documentaries this year, and after a while they all start to run together, both structurally and thematically. Billy the Kid is utterly original in both respects.
  7. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    70
    a movie about adolescence unlike any other; An intimate portrait of a singular personality in the making and a stark look at our culture of suspicion and conformity.
  8. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Jeannette Catsoulis
    70
    Presenting neither an argument for medication nor its rejection, Billy the Kid is a deceptively simple portrait of a shockingly self-aware and articulate young man.
  9. Variety
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    50
    One of the more irresponsible eruptions in the current rash of populist nonfiction cinema.
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