Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

One of the year's most important documentaries, a real must-see.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A riveting and impeccably researched documentary.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

This calm and thorough film has just the right attitude and tone to deal with a most incendiary story.

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Nelson's film eschews sensationalism, and knowing how the story ends in no way diminishes its visceral impact.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Five people did escape, and they contribute their stories to the spellbinding documentary.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Through interviews with Jonestown survivors and rare footage of Jones himself, this sober documentary presents an unforgettable historical portrait.

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Stanley Nelson's documentary shows how a religion becomes a cult, and how people are deceived by an ideal.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Meticulously researched documentary.

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.

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.

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.

Film Threat Phil Hall

Provides lethal evidence of what becomes of those who deposit their sincerity into the command of a religious lunatic.

Variety Ronnie Scheib

PBS-bound docu constitutes a revealing look at a poorly understood chapter in American history.

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.