Waiting for 'Superman'
Paramount Vantage | Release Date: September 24, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TimeRichard Corliss
This is more than an Important Documentary: it is engaging and, finally, enraging - as captivating as any "Superman" movie, and as poignant as a child's plea for help. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
This is a time when urgent issues are often explored in polemic documentaries, as well as a fateful moment when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity. Waiting for 'Superman' makes an invaluable addition to the debate. Read full review
100
VarietyJohn Anderson
Exhilarating, heartbreaking and righteous, Waiting for Superman is also a kind of high-minded thriller: Can the American education system be cured? Read full review
100
USA TodayScott Bowles
It's an apt title. As divisive as the issue has become, it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children, waiting on a superhero who isn't going to come. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing documentary. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen Holden
By showing how fiercely dedicated idealists are making a difference, it is a call to arms. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
Much of the film is told compellingly and heartbreakingly through the wide-eyed innocence of five children. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
This is one of the most galvanizing documentaries I've ever seen. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle Smith
As a former president of the United States remarked, "Childrens do learn," and what they learn in the heartbreaking yet thrillingly hopeful documentary Waiting for 'Superman' is that adults are finally starting to notice how badly kids have been betrayed by teachers unions. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim's scathing, moving critique of American public education, makes you actually want to do something after you dry your eyes. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
This movie isn't just a necessity (listen up, do-nothing politicians) - it might change your future. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Guggenheim, contends the American educational system is failing, which we have been told before. He dramatizes this failure in a painfully direct way, says what is wrong, says what is right. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
The most challenging obstacle encountered by reformers like Canada and Michelle Rhee, the embattled chancellor of education for Washington, D.C., are the unions extending tenure protection to teachers who underperform. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Superman argues convincingly that everyone should have the right to a good education, not just folks lucky enough to score winning numbers: It should be a birthright, not a matter of chance. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineSteve Ramos
When a filmmaker like Guggenheim is capable of doing that with a topic as complex as the public education crisis, you know you're watching the work of an extraordinary storyteller. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Why are innovative educators met with so much resistance? And why is our system falling so painfully short? Perhaps ­because so many of us don't realize just how dire things ­really are. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeFore
A moving and effective film whose subject may lack the hot-button boxoffice appeal of the director's "An Inconvenient Truth" but is at least a crisis practically everyone agrees actually exists. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
The film is more overwhelming than uplifting. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
This is a patient, simmering movie. It's contemplative but without his usual smitten indulgences. Read full review
75
MovielineMichelle Orange
Waiting For Superman may rub a little raw here and there, but if it stirs that memory in enough voting and tax-paying Americans, it has at least begun to do its job. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
I could have done without the clips from the old "Superman" TV show - strictly sugar to make the medicine go down, and a sign that the director doesn't fully trust his audience. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
The merits of its arguments can be debated on the Op-Ed pages, but at least the movie makes it clear that they desperately need to be. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The most suspenseful sequence of any movie I've seen this year comes near the end of Waiting for Superman. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This documentary about the public education crisis isn't as smart or rigorous as Bob Bowdon's shoestring production "The Cartel," which arrived in town earlier this year and quickly vanished. But the new movie is still an admirable exercise in straight talk. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid Denby
We need another movie, one that shows us why some charter schools work and others don't. And there's an issue that needs to be addressed by Guggenheim and such people as Bill Gates, who appears in the movie as an advocate for charter schools, which he has generously funded.It is the question of scale. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
Nobody can disagree that Waiting for Superman deals with a subject demanding attention. But it paints the engulfing problems of U.S. education with a brush too broad and samples too small to be definitive. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Your heart goes out to all these kids, but Guggenheim's take on education stacks the deck against them even further by implying that only charters offer a ray of hope. Would that it were that simple. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Ultimately, it may be the case that Guggenheim is a better instigator than filmmaker, as the debate about our educational system appears to be on the upswing at present. For this, rather than all the specifics of its argument and what it leaves out, Waiting for 'Superman' is essential viewing. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Waiting for Superman raises important questions while wearing a big red heart on its chest, but inconvenient facts are its kryptonite. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid Fear
The plentiful pop-doc touches ensure that this wake-up call won't put you to sleep, even if the ratio of spoonfuls of sugar to medicine occasionally seems skewed. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMelissa Anderson
Guggenheim's insistence on not engaging with the injustices that children of certain races and classes face outside of school makes his reiteration of the obvious-that "past all the noise and the debate, nothing will change without great teachers"-seem all the more willfully naïve. Read full review
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