No End in Sight
Metascore
89 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 28 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 28
  3. Negative: 0 out of 28
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    Who is Charles Ferguson, director of this film? A one-time senior fellow of the Brookings Institute, software millionaire, originally a supporter of the war, visiting professor at MIT and Berkeley, he was trustworthy enough to inspire confidences from former top officials.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    100
    May be the best and saddest film of the year so far.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    100
    The most coolheaded of the Iraq war documentaries, the most methodical and the least polemical. Yet it's the one that will leave audiences the most shattered, angry and astounded.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    100
    Ferguson's film is a clear-sighted counterpoint to the former secretary of defense's impression. As the title suggests, it's a seemingly infinite mess.
  5. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Rick Kisonak
    100
    No End In Sight is the most important film of the year thus far and, more significantly, the most comprehensive, clear-eyed account of the Iraq debacle and the arrogance behind it that we have.
  6. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    100
    If any movie can rid Americans of "Iraq war fatigue," it's Charles Ferguson's muscular documentary No End in Sight.
  7. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    100
    Ferguson spotlights two massive mistakes: the looting that was allowed to continue, destroying Iraqi infrastructure and morale; and--far more revelatory -- the apocalyptically stupid decision to disband the Iraqi army, sending half a million angry soldiers into the streets.
  8. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    100
    Prepare to be riveted: No End in Sight, Charles Ferguson's first film, is without question the most important movie you are likely to see this year.
  9. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    100
    Perhaps the most cogent and straightforward dissection of the Bush Administration missteps leading up to the current Iraq nightmare.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Rob Nelson
    90
    Masterfully edited and cumulatively walloping, Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight turns the well-known details of our monstrously bungled Iraq war into an enraging, apocalyptic litany of fuckups.
  11. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Dennis Lim
    90
    The result, narrated in a grave monotone by Campbell Scott, is a catalog of horrors so absurd and relentless it verges on farce, or Greek tragedy.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    90
    It’s a sober, revelatory and absolutely vital film.
  13. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    90
    Though the facts in No End in Sight are well known, the movie is still a classic.
  14. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    89
    It's enough to make you weep.
  15. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    88
    The most remarkable aspect of Charles Ferguson's lacerating documentary about the U.S. invasion of Iraq is that the film contains virtually no new information, and yet its message is as compelling as if we were hearing it for the first time.
  16. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    88
    The most compelling and least partisan of all the Iraq documentaries.
  17. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    88
    Lucid, concise and devastating account of what went wrong in Iraq, patiently counts those 500 ways.
  18. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    88
    The anger that fuels Ferguson's film is felt in nearly every frame.
  19. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    83
    The first to take a big-picture view of just how the plans for postwar occupation went so far off track.
  20. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    83
    The film concludes that there's still simply no way out of the forest.
  21. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    83
    It's a cogent, often infuriating explication of how the execution of the war went awry.
  22. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    80
    From the first frames of Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight, replaying some of the oddest and twitchiest podium performances of Donald Rumsfeld during those heady days of spring 2003, you may feel the crushing weight of an almost Sophoclean impending doom.
  23. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    A meticulous, thoroughly engrossing lesson in how not to win friends (or wars) and influence people (or potential terrorists).
  24. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    80
    Ferguson builds a compelling case of bad judgment, error, stubbornness and arrogance.
  25. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    80
    Ferguson is admirably tenacious in assigning blame for the boneheaded mistakes that have doomed Iraqi reconstruction. Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, is hung out to dry.
  26. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Michael Rechtshaffen
    70
    May not offer up any fresh revelations, but this effectively assembled documentary puts it all in valuable, if depressing, perspective.
  27. Variety
    Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    70
    With an accountant's eye for precision and a political scientist's grasp of the machinations that move national policy, Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight itemizes the errors, misjudgments and follies that have defined the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq.
  28. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    63
    Some documentaries are a fervent search for truth; others are a fervent search for snickers. This one is the latter, providing via interviews and old film clips a Greatest Hits for Bush haters.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
8.1 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 50 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 26
  3. Negative: 3 out of 26
  1. drdelirium
    9
    Finally got around to see this film three years after its release and I wish I had seen it earlier. Very relevant, even today and very much worth a viewing.… Full Review »
  2. JayH.
    8
    Very thought provoking, most always maddening, and the staggering cost of the war makes me sick, considering the current economic state. It they divided up the money spent in the war between all us citizens, we would all be millionaires. Bush and his cronies are incompetent disasters. What a mess they created.… Full Review »
  3. NigelM.
    10
    Frightening, fascinating and vital, this should be seen by as many people as possible, whatever your political persuasion. Lessons have to be learnt from the mess that Iraq has become and this film asks all the right questions, even if it doesn't have all the answers. The Bush administration have fueled terrorism beyond anything Bin Laden could ever have done, through ineptitude, carelessness and pure ignorance.… Full Review »
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