Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Focus Features | Release Date: June 8, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
39
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverOliver JonesNov 9, 2018
Remarkable film. Read full review
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 20, 2018
Fred Rogers dared to make a case that all children are precious and that there might be more productive ways to entertain and educate them than with popguns and pies in the face. More importantly, he decided to do something about it. Read full review
100
We Got This CoveredLuke ParkerJun 11, 2018
This beautiful work pays an immaculate tribute to him, illustrating the legacy of a man whose nature transcended the concepts of knowledge, understanding, age and love. Fifteen years after his death, the heroic and criminally under-appreciated efforts of Fred Rogers are finally being celebrated on the big screen in what may very well be the best documentary of the year. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 8, 2018
It’s like a security blanket for our troubled times. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoJun 7, 2018
As an antidote to the frenetic nature of a lot of children’s TV of the day, Rogers preferred a measured pace on his show, and even made judicious use of silence. These are just two of the numerous gifts given by this extraordinary man to the children lucky enough to have watched “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 6, 2018
Neville has created a film that operates both as a dewy-eyed nostalgia trip and stirring appeal for civility. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 8, 2018
Morgan Neville’s movie is more than just a chronicle of Rogers’s career. In some not-quite-definable way, the film itself is all of a piece with Rogers’s principled gentleness. It’s a love letter, but the sentiment and affection that pour through the film is honestly arrived at, even when, near the end, the film threatens to turn into the cinematic equivalent of a group hug. Read full review
91
The PlaylistKimber MyersJun 6, 2018
If there’s anyone deserving of hagiography, it’s Rogers. This documentary truly captures the depth of his goodness and earnestness, peeling back layers to reveal an even better person than you remembered. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” doesn’t cast Rogers as perfect, but it’s hard to imagine a more admirable man. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayJun 4, 2018
The film’s real strength is its plainness. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, like Rogers, tells us what we already know in our bones about how we’re supposed to behave. Hearing it said aloud, so calmly, is unexpectedly shattering. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnMar 20, 2018
In Won’t You Be My Neighbor, the touching and insightful survey of Rogers’ decades-spanning career from Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville (“Twenty Feet From Stardom”), the filmmaker highlights Rogers’ capacity to explore complex themes through the lens of a kid’s program that took a dead-serious approach to his young viewers’ needs. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 7, 2018
Neville, who won an Oscar for "20 Feet from Stardom," could have gone a different route, maybe try to dig up some dirt. But there really doesn't seem to be any. I don't know if it's Rogers' influence, but I like this film just the way it is. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 6, 2018
It is that emphasis — the earnest, critical attention to the public Mister Rogers and his legacy — that makes Won’t You Be My Neighbor? feel like such a gift. Read full review
90
UproxxMike RyanJun 4, 2018
It’s kind of hard to write about Won’t You Be My Neighbor? as a film. It’s exceptionally well-made, mind you – which shouldn’t be a huge surprise coming from Morgan Neville, who won an Academy Award for directing 20 Feet From Stardom – but beyond being a film, it’s an experience of earnestness we don’t see or hear much anymore, to the point that it’s a bit of a jolt to the system. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJun 13, 2018
Neville’s film isn’t making a case for canonization. But it is a call to action. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenNov 28, 2018
It will restore your faith in grace, goodness, and maybe—just maybe—even in humanity. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJun 14, 2018
Rogers has been criticized by conservative pundits and parodied by comedian Eddie Murphy. But those backhanded acknowledgments only confirmed his status as a force to be reckoned with. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonJun 8, 2018
One of the many “stand up and cheer” moments in Morgan Neville’s enchanting documentary, at least for me, is when cellist Yo-Yo Ma describes his first meeting with the man who will forever be known as the proprietor of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” “He scared the hell out of me,” says Ma. Read full review
88
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonJun 7, 2018
It is a portrait not of grinding earnestness but of a penetrating sincerity, the kind that reduces the cynical, the skeptical, and the callous to tears. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerJun 7, 2018
Film critic Roger Ebert described movies as “empathy machines,” in that they allowed people to understand the lives and stories of others. Empathy was a big part of what Fred Rogers taught. In this film and with others, Neville, who grew up in the entertainer’s neighbourhood, has demonstrated himself to be an A-plus student. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 7, 2018
In these troubled times, it's a good feeling to see a funny, touching and vital doc that is both timely and timeless. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 7, 2018
Without undue fawning, Neville’s moving portrait does a lovely job of presenting Rogers as two people, the public figure and the private one, sharing the same closet full of zip-up sweaters. Read full review
88
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJun 4, 2018
In his three-decade run, Rogers touched millions of souls. But the film is honest in questioning whether, in the end, he really made a difference. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJun 4, 2018
Fred Rogers is gone and the world is a much scarier place; this film, like a gift, briefly transports us back to the calm we felt long ago. Read full review
88
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 1, 2018
Oscar winner Morgan Neville (“20 Feet From Stardom”) carves in stone the case for Rogers’ as an authentic American TV saint. Read full review
80
The GuardianLeslie FelperinNov 8, 2018
This documentary by Morgan Neville reveals that he really was just what he seemed to be at first innocent sight: a kind-hearted, square but saintly man who genuinely loved and understood children. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 7, 2018
A wonderful breather from reality, from which you come back more conscious of — and dismayed by — the hate that more than ever runs the world. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 7, 2018
This beautiful film celebrates a deeply good man with a great gift for repairing. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 7, 2018
Neville's goal here is not so much to tell the story of Rogers' personal life, though that does get some play, but rather to detail the how and why of his success, to show the way someone whose formidable task was, in his own words, "to make goodness attractive" was able to make it happen. Read full review
80
SlateAisha HarrisJun 7, 2018
This might seem a quaint revelation, but it proves to be a powerful one. Learning that even Mr. Rogers questioned whether one man could make a difference is both heartening and saddening, enough to bring out in the viewer an overwhelming mix of emotions. Read full review
80
Village VoiceLara ZarumJun 4, 2018
Watching this movie is like freebasing sincerity — a scarce resource in our current entertainment hellscape. It’ll give you warm fuzzies for days. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDan FienbergMar 20, 2018
There's more to Fred Rogers than any 93-minute documentary can contain, and it was easy for me not to lament what Neville wasn't doing and just to embrace what Rogers was. Read full review
75
ConsequenceBlake GobleJun 8, 2018
It’s fine. It’s nice, pleasing, and capable of mustering amazement from time to time at what Rogers did. This callback to one of television’s greatest pioneers shows why he meant so much to so many, and what we could still learn from him today. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJake CoyleJun 7, 2018
It’s an affecting window into what remains very possibly the most benevolent broadcast ever regularly beamed out on the small screen. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 6, 2018
The film functions as a time machine to take the viewer back to when (s)he watched “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” on television and re-introduces the man who functioned as a friend/mentor/father-figure. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDerek SmithJun 2, 2018
It captures the strength of Fred Rogers's convictions even as his gentleness and sincerity fell further out of favor. Read full review
71
Paste MagazineWill LeitchJun 5, 2018
The primary fascination of Won’t You Be My Neighbor? lives when it stands outside this man and stares at him, unfathomably, wondering what in the world must have made him tick. The film tries to do more than that, with varying levels of success, but that’s the core: Who is this guy? Read full review
70
VoxAlissa WilkinsonJun 7, 2018
The film succeeds on the radically subversive and obvious notions we learned when we were children: that being nice is not a weakness; that speaking with care is a thing we do simply because we believe the person we’re talking to is a human being with worth and dignity. What’s most startling about Won’t You Be My Neighbor, and what makes it feel almost elegiac, is how very jarring that message feels. Read full review
70
VarietyAmy NicholsonMar 20, 2018
Neville’s fantastic archival footage reveals the man through his work — or at least, it reveals his philosophies, if not the childhood memories that gave Rogers the ability to understand a four-year-old’s brain, almost as if he still carried his in his cardigan pocket. Read full review
65
The AtlanticDavid SimsJun 7, 2018
The film is touching, sometimes saccharine, and other times bluntly honest, but it works best as a fascinating reminder that Rogers was trying to be more than a mascot of American politeness. Read full review
60
CineVueNick HiltonNov 8, 2018
There are few documentaries that feel like wholesome family films (20 Feet From Stardom is a rare example) but this is one. Overly reverential perhaps, but Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is an uncynical tonic for a very cynical age. Read full review
50
The Film StageDaniel SchindelMar 20, 2018
The film can easily coast on sentimentality and nostalgia for emotion, and does so frequently and unabashed. Which is frustrating, since there are glimpses of a more complex human being throughout the film, one who would have made for a much better subject. Read full review
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