77
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyEntertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMore narratively straightforward (but also masterfully edited in F for Fake style), the documentary takes its title from a Welles quote about the fickle hypocrisy of the movie business and about his other favorite subject: himself. And that quote couldn’t have been more spot-on for a man who was most appreciated most only when it was too late.
- 91The PlaylistKimber MyersThe PlaylistKimber MyersThere’s been no shortage of study on Welles, but They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead offers a new understanding of the elusive, cunning filmmaker with a verve the man himself would have admired.
- 85TheWrapRobert AbeleTheWrapRobert AbeleThe prime takeaway is of an irascibly charming, wounded and forceful genius both having the time of his life and sensing the gathering dusk.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyIt's as if Neville, inspired by the scattershot commentary of the party guests in Wind, felt he'd been given permission to be a bit wild, even chaotic, with his documentary film style, an approach that proves both apt and a bit frustrating.
- 80VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeIt says more about the man behind it than any documentary to date, cut together with such a supreme understanding and care for its subject that director Morgan Neville (“20 Feet From Stardom”) seems half-justified in suggesting that his project may as well be the missing film.
- 80Screen DailyJonathan RomneyScreen DailyJonathan RomneyEntertaining and informative as a contextualising accompaniment to Welles’s reconstructed experimental project The Other Side of the Wind...Neville’s film may reveal little that hardcore Wellesians don’t already know. But it offers a lively evocation of the great man’s brilliance, waywardness and pained relationship to Hollywood history.
- 75Slant MagazineChuck BowenSlant MagazineChuck BowenMorgan Neville understands Orson Welles's art to pivot on an ongoing quest to bring about self-destruction so as to contrive to transcend it.
- 75ConsequenceBlake GobleConsequenceBlake GobleWhen Neville chronicles the failed work of Orson Welles, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead comes alive with newsreel tabloid verve.
- 50The Film StageThe Film StageIt makes for a passable supplement, if not a worthy complement to Welles’ last effort.