77
Metascore
49 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanBigelow, working from a script by her regular collaborator Mark Boal (it’s their first film since “Zero Dark Thirty”), has created a turbulent, live-wire panorama of race in America that feels like it’s all unfolding in the moment, and that’s its power. We’re not watching tidy, well-meaning lessons — we’re watching people driven, by an impossible situation, to act out who they really are.
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperChicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperArriving in theaters almost exactly 50 years since the Detroit riots of late July 1967, Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit is a searing, pulse-pounding, shocking and deeply effective dramatic interpretation of events in and around the Algiers Motel.
- 98TheWrapClaudia PuigTheWrapClaudia PuigDetroit has a vital sense of authenticity, rooted as it is in history, conveyed via Bigelow’s meticulously crafted cinema vérité style that, essentially, thrusts the viewer into the tense events. She is an expert at managing suspense and deftly blending sensitivity with a journalistic sense of details.
- 91Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattEntertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattA sincere effort to illuminate a singularly dark chapter in history — and a stark reminder of exactly what gets lost when human beings fail to take care of their own.
- 90New York Daily NewsJordan HoffmanNew York Daily NewsJordan HoffmanThis movie will spark debate, even with an end title card that reminds audiences of the concept of dramatic license. But as a movie, and not a court document, it is extraordinary.
- 88Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversIt's a hardcore masterpiece that digs into our violent past to hold up a dark mirror to the systemic racism that still rages in the here and now.
- 80Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonThis gritty, gripping movie starts slowly but builds in intensity, culminating in sorrow and raw nerves.
- 75IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichDetroit is extremely powerful when its wandering eye is trained on the moment at hand, when it’s performing a bracingly direct meditation on white violence and black fear. The film only runs into trouble when it clumsily attempts to contextualize the events of its horrific second act.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyIntense and physically powerful in the way it conveys its atrocious events, the film nonetheless remains short on complexity, as if it were enough simply to provoke and outrage the audience. It's a grim tale with no catharsis.
- 63Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsA handful of films, from "The Battle of Algiers" to Paul Greengrass' splendid "Bloody Sunday," have met the challenge of dramatizing civil unrest and law enforcement outrages, memorably. Detroit comes close.