Riding Giants

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

An exhilarating, often mind-blowing history of surfing.

Portland Oregonian Staff (Not credited)

A more sober, less in-your-face documentary than Peralta's great skateboarding flick.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

May well be the most thrilling and educational surfing movie ever.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Traces the sport to its Polynesian beginnings, then zooms in on the genesis of 20th- century Southern California surf culture -- the boards, the bikinis, the laid-back cowabunga.

LA Weekly Joe Donnelly

The Maverick's sequence is perhaps Giants' most viscerally exciting and poignant.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

One of the best surfing documentaries ever filmed.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Every sport, and every sports film, must have its superman. The role is filled here by Laird Hamilton, who, we are told -- and, more astonishingly, shown -- took "the single most significant ride in surfing history." Seeing is believing.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

By land or by sea, there aren't many movies that can move you like that.

Chicago Reader Bill Stamets

This is vicarious cinema at its best.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Riding Giants is about altogether another reality. The overarching fact about these surfers is the degree of their obsession.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The risks these guys take seem outlandish, their accomplishments otherworldly.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Giants has SO many insistent high points, in fact, that its breathlessness threatens to turn monotonous.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

For those dazed and dazzled by surf anarchists Noll and Clark, Hamilton comes off as the sport's technocrat, but he boldly goes where no surfer has gone before.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Magnificent if overlong and oddly structured surfing documentary.

Variety Scott Foundas

Offers a highly engaging immersion into a culture of larger-than-life characters driven by their thrill-seeking instincts.

Village Voice Benjamin Strong

Peralta has become a more relaxed filmmaker, and when he trusts the haunting sight of a giant wave breaking to speak for itself, the movie reaches the sublime heights of its subject.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Because the waves get progressively higher in Riding Giants, Stacy Peralta's historical surfing documentary, some of that thrill is sustained throughout this overlong but entertaining movie.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

It's a film hopelessly in thrall to the thrill of big-wave surfing, and for all its rambling shapelessness, it conveys that excitement in an infectious, conspiratorial manner.

Empire Adam Smith

This story is emblematic of the passion, obsession and solitary poetry of surfing.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

It's the tales from Noll and his mates, now older and chubbier, that give heart to what otherwise could have faded into PBS special-land.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A breathtaking visual history of big wave surfing. This is vicarious daredevilry at its best.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Every time Riding Giants starts feeling a little too insidery for casual viewers, along comes another, even bigger wave, daring these puny mortals to conquer it.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Offers a thrilling, informative history of a sport-subculture.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Stacy Peralta may think otherwise, but this 101-minute homage to the heroes of surfing is nothing if not a monument to their self-absorption--and to his own. That's probably inevitable.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Peralta includes amazing archival footage to demonstrate just how far surfing in general permeated American popular culture, but also narrows his focus to follow the evolution of the surfboard itself.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

For those who do enjoy being smacked around by the ocean, for those who thrill to the romance and hype of extreme surfing and dig the outsider aspect of this rarefied culture or at least its marketed cool, this film will likely be their ticket to ride a board by proxy.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Too long by about 20 minutes, and arguably too obsessed with the lineage of names only of interest to other surfers, this is a vicarious kick.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

There is plenty here to enjoy for beach bums and fans of bikinis and six-pack abs, but others are likely to find themselves hopeless wet blankets.