American Movie

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

That's why American Movie cuts so deep: It's about the American dream, about not giving up, about being true to yourself.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Smith's gleeful, touching documentary records the agony and the ecstasy of realizing your dream, and intangible ways that such dreams help keep people alive.

TNT RoughCut Sara Raskin

Near-perfect editing, and cleverly poignant dialogue.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A very funny, sometimes very sad documentary.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

A revealing, intimate, quirky and generous portrait of nothing less than the American Dream.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

As quintessential a story of American ambition as Welles' own "Citizen Kane."

The New York Times Janet Maslin

The rare documentary that combines a wildly charismatic subject with an elegant structure...not-to-be-missed.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Extraordinary.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

Though a little long, the film takes us right inside both the creative impulse and the margins of American life. Its triumph is to show those two things as being deeply, wonderfully connected.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

This unassuming, insistently entertaining documentary has the virtue of a great subject.

Austin Chronicle Russel Smith

A revealing, heart- and mind-engaging insight into a uniquely American character type many of us may have known.

USA Today Mike Clark

This thorough original is a wall-to-wall exercise in gallows humor, a movie whose full funny/sad effect doesn't hit until you reflect upon the subject and the cast of characters.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Of all the many documentaries that take you along on a movie shoot, one of my all-time favorites is this delightfully scrappy, sometimes poignant, often hilarious show.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

Hysterical-depressing, vividly sobering.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

But this is pretty honest and true filmmaking, nonetheless; try as you might, you can't detect the leer of the satirist.

Film.com John Hartl

A chronicle of the exasperating circumstances that yield cinema gold -- or lead. It almost doesn't matter which; it's the process that counts here.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Brilliant, mind-boggling.

Film.com Peter Brunette

Hilarious and often moving.

Newsweek Andrea C. Basora

Like its subject, American Movie works entirely on its own quirky terms.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Touching, frequently hilarious.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Often coming across as simultaneously out of control and self-possessed, Borchardt can't have been an easy target, but the filmmakers seem to have nailed him.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Wildly entertaining and quite poignant.

Slate David Edelstein

As I watched American Movie, a lot of it struck me as untranscendent misery. But in hindsight it seems less hopeless.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A tacit auteur-to-auteur endorsement of the inalienable right to make movies--regardless of talent or sobriety or adult responsibilities--is what gives American Movie its uneasy kick.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Although overly long at 107 minutes, American Movie is an incisive, largely absorbing work and a far more mature effort than Smith's "American Job."

Village Voice Amy Taubin

Although I don't begrudge Borchardt his year of fame, what he doesn't seem to understand about his exploitation creeps me out.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

It's never entirely clear whether Borchardt is also an object of ridicule for documentarian Chris Smith.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Frequently hilarious, if overlong.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

It seems more a geek show than a slab of marketing wizardry.