96
Metascore
38 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The GuardianJordan HoffmanThe GuardianJordan HoffmanThe lack of awareness of this event is another tragic example of black history being ignored. Only this time the record survived, and now we all get to share in it.
- 100The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenSummer of Soul is as thoughtful as it is rousing, a welcome shot of adrenaline to kick off not just a film festival but a new year.
- 100The PlaylistAndrew CrumpThe PlaylistAndrew CrumpThe genuinely revelatory combined effect of the interviews, concert footage, and pure elation aside, there remains an undercurrent of bristling frustration bubbling beneath the film’s surface. 52 years? That’s how long “Summer of Soul” sat unseen, hidden from the public? If work this important can be squirreled away from view for this long, and if we let our imaginations run wild, then who knows how many other stories lie buried in anonymity, or where.
- 100VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanIt’s a music documentary like no other, because while it’s a joyful, cataclysmic, and soulfully seductive concert movie, what it’s really about is a key turning point in Black life in America.
- 91ConsequenceClint WorthingtonConsequenceClint WorthingtonA revelatory burst of Black history suffused with the joy and struggle that made it possible.
- It’s better defined as an archeological excavation, a confirmation of distant recollection, returned and restored. You have to wonder how many other dusty canisters like it are still lying around.
- 90Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonThe performances are often revelatory, but the sense of history coming alive — of the past speaking to the present — is even more riveting.
- 85SlashfilmBen PearsonSlashfilmBen PearsonOverall, the electricity of the music and the novelty of seeing some of these performers absolutely shred during this period of their careers easily overshadows any of its flaws.
- 83Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattEntertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattThe interviews are their own historical document, though it's the visceral thrill of being inside all those archival clips — the flick of Simone's wrist, an ecstatic face in the crowd — that makes Summer of Soul comes most fully alive, somehow both as fresh as yesterday and as far away as the moon.
- 80TheWrapSteve PondTheWrapSteve PondYou can come for the music and stay for the politics, or vice versa; either way, it’s a vibrant document of an inspiring event that never loses sight of what that event meant for a community, a city and a culture.