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The Nomi Song
Metascore
71 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    Forget Devo, Nico, Bowie, or Beefheart: The most mesmerizing freak show in the history of rock & roll was Klaus Nomi.
  2. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    80
    Made with considerable wit and style, Horn's thoughtful celebration of the era and its most uncanny diva could function as the show's ("East Village USA") supplement.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Crust
    80
    Horn, who knew Nomi, does an excellent job of evoking the exhilaratingly hedonistic period the film covers as well as the long shadow that the coming of AIDS casts over it.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: Leslie Felperin
    80
    An absorbing homage to obscure but fascinating late '70s-early '80s German stage artiste Klaus Nomi.
  5. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    80
    Intriguing and affecting documentary.
    All this critic's reviews
  6. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    78
    Thankfully, The Nomi Song should go a long way toward re-cementing this striking creature's legendary status.
  7. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Neva Chonin
    75
    With The Nomi Song, Horn does more than simply pay homage to a late artist. He uses his subject to revisit the euphoria of artistic and musical culture at a crossroads, and in the process brings it, briefly and poignantly, back to life again.
  8. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    75
    Succeeds at its main tasks. It re-creates new wave New York with Proustian force, from the Kiev (the diner) to Fiorucci (the clothing store).
  9. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Michael Rechtshaffen
    70
    The film fittingly embraces the elements of camp and kitsch that played such a major role in defining the Nomi persona.
  10. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    70
    Dazzles with rare performance footage.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    70
    Without coming out and saying it, The Nomi Song creates the sense that its subject might simply have been a few hundred years ahead of his time.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    70
    An affectionate portrait, not only of Nomi, but also of the long-gone days when downtown Manhattan was an affordable enclave for creative misfits.
  13. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Andrea Gronvall
    70
    Andrew Horn, writer of "East Side Story," directs, stylishly.
  14. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    67
    A cross between David Bowie and Maria Callas, the German singer took androgyny to an unearthly level.
  15. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    63
    Occasionally exhilarating documentary.
  16. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Debra Birnbaum
    63
    Horn bookends his documentary with clips from "It Came From Outer Space."
  17. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    60
    And if you never learn much about the man behind the mask, well, that's as Nomi would have wanted it.
  18. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    50
    There remains a maddening emptiness where the film's ostensible subject should be.
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