Critic Reviews

This is an amazing record of a group of lives -- and probably more resonant than anyone could have imagined when the project began.

The latest episode of this ongoing masterpiece of reality TV -- which every seven years revisits a group of English people first interviewed as 7-year-olds in 1964 -- is every bit as enthralling as the earlier ones.

The latest installment is packed with surprises and emotion for people who've seen earlier stages of the project, but even newcomers will be fascinated by the vivid glimpses it provides of everything from love and family to political action and the pervasiveness of class distinctions in British life.

This series should be sealed in a time capsule. It is on my list of the 10 greatest films of all time, and is a noble use of the medium.

A truly great and deceptively simple work, redefining the power of film.

An empathetic portrait of humanity on a house-by-house, heart-by-heart basis.

The 7Up series is thus one of the rare documentaries to have had a positive practical effect on the life of at least one of its subjects.

Apted...has the storytelling skills to weave a powerful and poignant snapshot of some decent folks who have become, collectively, Britain's first family.

That nothing more monumental than an everyday life has occurred to any of the subjects is perhaps the film's most compelling aspect.

Perhaps the most remarkable documentary project ever undertaken, and certainly the longest, is Michael Apted's Up series, which he began shooting for the BBC in 1962.