Where's My Roy Cohn?
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: September 20, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 16, 2019
In the month since this documentary went into limited release, it’s proven prophetic about events as crimes are alleged or revealed in Washington. Where’s My Roy Cohn? even seems to predict how the tidal wave of high crimes and misdemeanors might play out. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerOct 2, 2019
Where’s My Roy Cohn? is brash and relentless, much like the man himself. We won’t need to wait for a sequel. Because of the ascension of Cohn’s most eagerly unscrupulous student, we’re watching Part II unfold as we speak. Read full review
88
TheWrapSteve PondFeb 1, 2019
The film makes a good case for [Cohn's] legacy being entirely negative, leading to today’s cutthroat, divisive and lie-packed politics. But it also, crucially, makes a case for Cohn being a fascinating subject, a bundle of contradictions in a slick and soulless package. Read full review
85
Film ThreatAnthony Ray BenchFeb 4, 2019
Where’s My Roy Cohn? is a great doc that’s a tad aesthetically stale, but it will have a mass appeal even to those unfamiliar with Cohn and uninterested in politics and law. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 21, 2019
Donald Trump was less kind, essentially abandoning him after his then still-secret diagnosis. Tyrnauer smartly doesn’t overplay the symbolism of their relationship, or work too hard to connect the dots; it’s all there to take or leave in the film’s shrewd, illuminating exploration of a man whose influence, for better or worse, may have far outdone even his wildest dreams. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 8, 2019
Tyrnauer’s film is fairly straightforward in structure — we hit the highlights up front, such as Cohn’s work advising Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a gig that would have killed most people's career — but it’s Cohn’s almost pathological need to be seen, and to be seen as tough and willing to fight, that makes the film so compelling. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 19, 2019
It offers a blunt, ruthless evisceration — which is to say, a clear-eyed assessment — of the brilliant legal mind who helped send the Rosenbergs to the electric chair and made his reputation as Joseph McCarthy’s attack dog. Read full review
80
CNNBrian LowrySep 19, 2019
Where's My Roy Cohn? is by no means a flattering portrait; rather, the film portrays Cohn as being emblematic of everything that's wrong with politics, class disparity and the current toxic political environment. Were he still around, though, it goes without saying that Cohn would characterize the project as a stunning victory. Read full review
80
VarietyNick SchagerSep 4, 2019
A biographical portrait that doubles as an origin story for today’s amoral political landscape, its marriage of incisiveness and timeliness should make it an indie hit this fall. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 1, 2019
So consistently odious, diabolical and simply anti-humane is Cohn’s lifetime portfolio that you really feel the need of a cold shower afterwards. But this kind of dark brilliance is always fascinating, and the doc is able to trade on this all the way through. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 16, 2019
Cohn was a strange mix of self-aggrandizing and self-loathing, or maybe that’s a familiar mix. In any case, he emerges from the film partly sympathetic, if only because he seemed so miserable all his life, but mainly as the prime example of what Shakespeare meant when he said, “The evil that men do lives after them.” Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 26, 2019
With all we know about this chillingly amoral, blackhearted man, Where’s My Roy Cohn? still serves as a thorough and insightful history lesson that makes a convincing case that among other sins, Cohn was one of the early architects of bitterly divisive, take-no-prisoners, make-no-excuses, dirty-tricks politics. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 24, 2019
Through the lens of the eminence sleaze at its center, Where’s My Roy Cohn? offers as cogent a primer as any on how we got here. Meanwhile, somewhere down there, Roy Cohn is having the last, bitter laugh. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzSep 21, 2019
In his mind, Cohn was still the hero of his own story. And we get the impression from this film that, right up to the bitter, agonized end, he was engaged in an internal battle to justify himself to himself, and to the world. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiSep 13, 2019
This sharp, to-the-point portrait of the crook, fixer, and right-wing pitbull resists the urge to darkly glamorize him. Read full review
75
The Film StageDan MeccaFeb 1, 2019
Where’s My Roy Cohn? is a worthy documentary, though it’s hard not to want more. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 20, 2019
Tyrnauer’s flashes of compassion for this self-hating Jew and homosexual — taught from childhood to feel ashamed of what he was and who he was — remind us that his subject’s toxic, insidious amorality did not go to the grave with him. It’s all around us, among opportunists still looking for their own Roy Cohn — just one of several reasons why Tyrnauer’s doc hits you like a punch in the gut. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 19, 2019
Where’s My Roy Cohn?” is most interesting for the questions it doesn’t explicitly ask. Those have to do with not with Cohn’s blatant amorality, but with the moral compromises of the elite who tolerated his company and found uses for his talents. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisOct 9, 2019
Well-researched and candid, this documentary will not change anyone’s perception of Cohn or rehabilitate his character in any way. Although his self-loathing insecurities may slightly humanize him, he will always be one-dimensionally evil. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonSep 19, 2019
Entertaining but highly conventional documentary. Read full review
60
The GuardianJordan HoffmanFeb 1, 2019
What this by-the-numbers approach lacks in artistry it makes up for in an avalanche of facts. Read full review
58
Original-CinThom ErnstOct 3, 2019
Tyrnauer’s film doesn’t seem to trust its material enough to allow the power of the stories to unfold without a constant hammering of a B-level-journalism music soundtrack — the kind best-suited for tabloid news programs. And the film’s unwavering criticism of Cohn (however warranted it might be) reduces an otherwise gripping biographical story into a sensationalized television-ready expose. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichFeb 1, 2019
While erudite, well-researched, and all too relevant ... [the film] is an unilluminating chore to watch, even as it convincingly argues the profound extent to which its subject helped blemish the moral complexion of the modern world. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyOct 2, 2019
The biggest problem with Where’s My Roy Cohn? is the documentary’s attitude toward its subject: not that it’s critical (an uncritical approach to Cohn would be about as interesting as a daytime visit to Studio 54), but that it so thoroughly accepts his view of himself. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 19, 2019
Roy Cohn was way more entertaining than the new documentary about Roy Cohn. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubCharles BramescoSep 18, 2019
To fully understand Cohn, to see how the larger-than-life force shaping the latter half of the 20th century came to mold the 21st as well, requires a more penetrating approach than Tyrnauer’s easily digested, skin-deep survey. Read full review
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