Paris Is Burning

Cinepix / Famous Players Distribution (C/FP) | Release Date: August 1, 1991

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

82	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 21 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Owen Gleiberman

Paris Is Burning is the most passionately empathetic piece of documentary filmmaking I’ve seen since Streetwise, the brilliant portrait of homeless teens in Seattle, and The Decline of Western Civilization Part II, Penelope Spheeris’ sly and galvanizing heavy-metal collage. Read full review

100

Edward Guthmann

Technically rough and ragged, Paris nonetheless does an excellent job of digesting a rich, multilayered subculture, and breaking it down for a general audience without oversimplification. [09 Aug 1991, p.F1]

Katie Walsh

Wildly entertaining, deeply humanitarian and fundamentally educational film. Read full review

Steve Davis

As much a movie about class, race, and sexual orientation as anything you've ever seen. Read full review

Hal Hinson

Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston's brilliantly entertaining documentary look into the New York subculture of drag queens and transsexuals, is a rapturous, desperate ode to self-invention. Read full review

Jay Carr

With unpatronizing empathy, Paris Is Burning beckons us into a subculture. [09 Aug 1991, p.39]

Dave Kehr

A rough-edged, talking-heads documentary, directed with skill if not polish by Jennie Livingston, that has found a topic almost unbelievably rich in cultural paradoxes and interpretive possibilities. [09 Aug 1991, p.C]

Christine Arnold Dolen

Thanks to the self-revealing insight of its subjects, and to the unobtrusive compassion of its director, it is unforgettable. [30 Aug 1991, p.G11]

Mike Clark

It's so exhilarating (and already such a hit) that even the fogies who choose which documentaries are nominated for Oscars may have to acknowledge its existence. [15 Aug 1991, p.5D]

Noel Murray

Paris Is Burning encapsulates New York at the end of the '80s, examining how a group of outcasts made a home there, using theft and ingenuity. Read full review

Desson Thomson

Touching and funny eye-opener of a documentary. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

This 1990 documentary does for voguing what David LaChappelle’s ‘Rize’ recently did for krumping: provides a fascinating portrait of a complex, materially disadvantaged subculture structured around intensely competitive aesthetic displays later plundered for a Madonna video. Read full review

Jeff Menell

Paris Is Burning is a strong film about a segment of our society that is determined to survive. It's not just a film about gays, it's about fighting prejudice and trying to achieve a dream, something we all do now and then. [09 Aug 1991]

Jonathan Rosenbaum

One emerges from this film not only with a new vocabulary and a fresh way of viewing the straight world but with a bracing object lesson in understanding what society “role models” are all about. Read full review

Roger Ebert

What I saw was a successful attempt by the outsiders to dramatize how success and status in the world often depend on props you can buy, or steal, almost anywhere - assuming you have the style to know how to use them. Read full review

Peter Travers

Paris Is Burning catches the sadly hollow spectacle with acuity, wit and intelligence. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

An enthralling examination of the loaded cultural issues of sex, class and race as seen through the subculture of black and hispanic transvestites. Read full review

David Sterritt

The film is rude, colorful, and bursting with questions about American culture, subculture, and society. [08 Apr 1991, p.11]

Staff (Not Credited)

Livington's film provides a lively look at an exotic subculture that mimics the values of the white majority with unique wit, irony, and style. [07 May 1991, p.2]

Vincent Canby

Miss Livingston's interviews reveal a way of living that is both highly structured and self-protective. Read full review