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Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Seventh Art Releasing
MPAA RATING: Not Rated
This documentary tells the story of the people who followed Jim Jones from Indiana, to California, and finally to the remote jungles of Guyana, South America, in a misbegotten quest to build an ideal society. (Seventh Art Releasing)
| GENRE(S): |
Documentary
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Marcia Smith
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Stanley Nelson
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 10, 2007
Theatrical: October 20, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
86 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
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...
100
San Francisco Chronicle
G. Allen Johnson
One of the year's most important documentaries, a real must-see.
91
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
A riveting and impeccably researched documentary.
90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
This calm and thorough film has just the right attitude and tone to deal with a most incendiary story.
90
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
I can't imagine anyone not being both horrified and fascinated by Stanley Nelson's Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple.
88
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Nelson's film eschews sensationalism, and knowing how the story ends in no way diminishes its visceral impact.
88
New York Post
Kyle Smith
Five people did escape, and they contribute their stories to the spellbinding documentary.
88
Premiere
Aaron Hillis
A conventional but genuinely heartrending exposé of the Indiana boy who grew to be a powerful religious cult leader, director Stanley Nelson's thoroughly researched doc is not a posthumous character assassination, which would be all too easy and unnecessary.
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Noel Murray
While Jonestown lacks the power of revelation, it's a first-rate piece of journalism, as fascinating and thorough as any magazine article.
80
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
An excellent documentary by MacArthur fellow Stanley Nelson (The Murder of Emmett Till), offers no grand theories for the Jonestown phenomenon.
80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Nelson has fashioned a compelling movie around an unfathomable mystery. To see Jones's face, eyes hidden behind trademark aviator shades, is to experience the last shock in Psycho. His is the blank stare of living death.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Sheri Linden
Through interviews with Jonestown survivors and rare footage of Jones himself, this sober documentary presents an unforgettable historical portrait.
80
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
As this powerful, minutely documented film reveals, the tragedy wasn’t caused by the failure of the Peoples Temple to realize its goals. In many ways, it was succeeding as a self-sufficient community.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bill White
Stanley Nelson's documentary shows how a religion becomes a cult, and how people are deceived by an ideal.
75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Meticulously researched documentary.
75
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Chilling doesn't begin to describe Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple...But the film never gets behind the chill.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Harrowing and inexorable, the film recaptures the progressive insanity of Jim Jones and the hundreds of worshipers in his thrall, and it certainly gives you willies to last for days.
70
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
It would be nice to report that director Stanley Nelson comes up with something new, some illumination, some revelation, some heretofore unglimpsed irony, but he doesn't.
70
Film Threat
Phil Hall
Provides lethal evidence of what becomes of those who deposit their sincerity into the command of a religious lunatic.
70
Variety
Ronnie Scheib
PBS-bound docu constitutes a revealing look at a poorly understood chapter in American history.
58
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The Peoples Temple congregation was sizably African-American. But when it comes to how those followers turned into a zombie Kool-Aid death cult, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple leaves you with more questions than you went in with.
 The average user rating for this movie is 9.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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