Whitney
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: July 6, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 6, 2018
If you liked Whitney Houston before, you’ll like her even more after seeing this. You’ll also admire her and feel pity for her and feel frustrated by her. Read full review
100
Total FilmJames MottramJul 4, 2018
Macdonald leaves no stone unturned in this tremendous look at Houston, one that sheds real light on the singer’s psychology. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 5, 2018
Whitney feels like the kind of film anyone who cared at all about her should see: the fullest portrait yet — if one that will always, inevitably fall short — of a singular artist and human being who may have eluded understanding in the end, but still gave the world far more than she ever got back. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaJul 5, 2018
It's clear-eyed and remarkably honest, and Macdonald shows a flair for illustrating how Houston's life fits in the bigger picture Read full review
88
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJul 5, 2018
Whitney offers an informed and moving portrait of a complex, talented woman who was poorly understood, and often cruelly judged. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 5, 2018
In the alternately exhilarating and heartbreaking documentary Whitney, the Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald (“Touching the Void,” “The Last King of Scotland”) does a magnificent job of taking us through the paces of Houston’s life and times. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJul 3, 2018
It’s hard to watch young Whitney, knowing what lies ahead, but it seems important to do as the film does: take a moment, and just listen to her sing. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJul 4, 2018
Whitney herself remains a figure of some mystery, her rise and fall refracting the hopes and anxieties of the people around her, with a tragic echo in the death of her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, in 2015. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJordan RuimyMay 27, 2018
Stripping the “I Will Always Love You,” singer away from sensationalist tabloid dirt that marred her life, MacDonald’s thoughtfulness is arguably its standout element. The finesse with which he crafts his doc makes for, quite simply, an absorbing and moving portrayal of an unforgettable heartrending figure. Read full review
80
TheWrapCarlos AguilarJul 7, 2018
Whitney is at its most powerful when it focuses on reminding us what we all lost, because the more you think about how outstanding her gift was, the more tragic her absence feels. Read full review
80
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJul 6, 2018
What McDonald ends up with is a film that serves both as tribute and as cautionary tale, and one that functions well as both. Read full review
80
Empire Terri WhiteJul 5, 2018
A sobering, haunting but completely fresh look at Whitney’s life and death that will reframe everything you think you know about the singer. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJul 5, 2018
The most harrowing revelation of all comes during two of Macdonald’s many interviews with friends, family and associates. It’s a piece of digging that adds investigative weight to the film and a hard-hitting coda to his exploration of the fragile psychology of stardom. Read full review
80
CineVueJoe WalshJul 5, 2018
MacDonald’s Whitney is compellingly told with compassion and style, showing just how great a gift Houston was blessed with, but also the demons that pursued her all her life to its tragic end. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 5, 2018
Kevin Macdonald’s Whitney is a documentary chronicle of Whitney Houston’s life; it’s tough-minded, unsparing and far superior to the biopic and the nonfiction film that preceded it. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 5, 2018
The main reason to see Whitney is the way it explores the baffling conundrums of her life. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyMay 16, 2018
It's a riveting narrative, and even those not among Houston's more passionate fan base will find it an emotionally wrenching experience. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanMay 16, 2018
Macdonald’s multi-faceted portrait of Houston allows us to touch the intertwined forces that did her in. Read full review
75
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerJul 24, 2018
By the time Whitney reaches the point it inevitably must, Macdonald’s film stands as an archive of how preventable Houston’s passing truly was. Read full review
75
Original-CinKim HughesJul 19, 2018
Crucially, Macdonald (see also The Last King of Scotland, Marley, State of Play) doesn’t stint on the train-wreck aspects of her career: the infamous Diane Sawyer interview, disastrous, flabby late-career performances, and yes, those tabloid images of a gaunt, wild-eyed, and clearly tripping Houston. Whether audiences feel greater insight into her dreams and demons as a result is somewhat less certain. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Carly LewisJul 12, 2018
The film is a sad calamity of conflicting narratives as those closest to Houston work through varying stages of honesty and denial. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 7, 2018
Houston was a real mess, to be sure — probably abused as a child, certainly abused as a wife, ill-used by her crooked Dad, not saved by friends, family or the industries that made fortunes off her. But she was a “singular talent, a huge figure in the culture.” “Whitney” is a touching naked look at how that American Tragedy played out. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaJul 6, 2018
A well-done but all-too-woeful wallow of a documentary. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchKevin C. JohnsonJul 5, 2018
Sensational slanting notwithstanding, Whitney is as powerful and quintessential as it is overwhelming and grueling. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeGraham AmbroseJul 4, 2018
A family affair, a family failure. The life of Whitney Houston seems like a cage match between competing egotists who call one another relatives. No doubt a certain pall hangs over the film, perhaps inevitable with the subject, and aided by the cathartic candor of most interviewees. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 4, 2018
Although Whitney follows a familiar structure, Macdonald infuses it with artful editorial choices, marking the chapters of Houston’s life with brief but vivid montages of the times in which she lived. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 5, 2018
Though Macdonald offers the sight and sound of Whitney in interviews and home movies, she is never heard grappling with the grave issues the film raises. Read full review
70
The New York TimesWesley MorrisJul 5, 2018
Whitney is too funereal to be a party, too sad, strange and dismaying to cheer. Yet, in its grim, guilt-inducing way, the film works, even on the occasions when it’s working against itself. Read full review
70
Village VoiceLara ZarumJul 5, 2018
By the time Whitney winds to an end, that massive talent feels like a dangerously valuable resource, one that even the people who were supposed to protect Houston couldn’t resist exploiting. Read full review
70
Screen DailyTim GriersonMay 16, 2018
Whitney is strongest when it connects Houston to the larger history of Black America, illustrating how this glamorous performer grew up in poverty and never entirely escaped the obligation of helping to pull up her underprivileged family members. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJul 4, 2018
For those who only remember Houston as the train-wreck spectacle she devolved into during her latter years, this documentary will do a good job of providing the basic outline of her life. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineJosh WiseJul 5, 2018
For most of Kevin Macdonald's film, Whitney Houston seems a guttering flame in a public crosswind, with only fleeting celebration given to the wildfire of her success. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaMay 19, 2018
Two biographical documentaries in, and it still feels like we’re in need of a Houston film that digs into her music first, and the hows and whys of its enduring power. Read full review
60
The GuardianGuy LodgeMay 17, 2018
It’s a film principally and poignantly focused on the absence of Whitney, an aching void felt as much in life as in death. Many of us missed Whitney even before she left; this imperfect documentary preys calmly and effectively on that longing. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 16, 2018
The film is oddly unmoving as a memorial, but as with Amy Winehouse, it inspires a collective mea culpa for the feeding frenzy of public judgement that only turned to sympathy when it was far too late. Read full review
55
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaJul 12, 2018
For every overgeneralization Macdonald leans into or too-obvious historic parallels he lets fly, there is a corresponding performance, ebullient and transcendent—a purity Macdonald, and his viewers for that matter, can’t help but sour. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 5, 2018
There are watchable moments, undoubtedly, and it is extraordinary to watch Houston’s sensational performance at the 1991 Super Bowl, singing The Star Spangled Banner with such passion: perhaps the greatest moment of her professional life. Her enigma remains unsolved. Read full review
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