Critic Reviews
82
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
21(95%)
mixed
1(5%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 22 Critic Reviews
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All Reviews
Metascore
Metascore
100
Paris Is Burning is the most passionately empathetic piece of documentary filmmaking I’ve seen since Streetwise, the brilliant portrait of homeless teens in Seattle, and The Decline of Western Civilization Part II, Penelope Spheeris’ sly and galvanizing heavy-metal collage.
100
Technically rough and ragged, Paris nonetheless does an excellent job of digesting a rich, multilayered subculture, and breaking it down for a general audience without oversimplification. [09 Aug 1991, p.F1]
90
Wildly entertaining, deeply humanitarian and fundamentally educational film.
89
As much a movie about class, race, and sexual orientation as anything you've ever seen.
88
Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston's brilliantly entertaining documentary look into the New York subculture of drag queens and transsexuals, is a rapturous, desperate ode to self-invention.
88
With unpatronizing empathy, Paris Is Burning beckons us into a subculture. [09 Aug 1991, p.39]
88
A rough-edged, talking-heads documentary, directed with skill if not polish by Jennie Livingston, that has found a topic almost unbelievably rich in cultural paradoxes and interpretive possibilities. [09 Aug 1991, p.C]
88
Thanks to the self-revealing insight of its subjects, and to the unobtrusive compassion of its director, it is unforgettable. [30 Aug 1991, p.G11]
88
It's so exhilarating (and already such a hit) that even the fogies who choose which documentaries are nominated for Oscars may have to acknowledge its existence. [15 Aug 1991, p.5D]
88
Paris is Burning crackles because of its subjects, almost all of whom are natural performers in some way.
