81
Metascore
31 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100VarietyVarietyExhilarating, heartbreaking and righteous, Waiting for Superman is also a kind of high-minded thriller: Can the American education system be cured?
- 100Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternWall Street JournalJoe MorgensternThis 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.
- 100USA TodayScott BowlesUSA TodayScott BowlesIt'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.
- 91Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumPowerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing documentary.
- 90New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinThis is one of the most galvanizing documentaries I've ever seen.
- 83The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinSuperman 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.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeThe Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeA 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.
- 75MovielineMichelle OrangeMovielineMichelle OrangeWaiting 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.
- 60Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearThe 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.
- 50Village VoiceMelissa AndersonVillage VoiceMelissa AndersonGuggenheim'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.