Critic Reviews

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006) Rank 3 Reviews

Expert Review Summary

Movie critics combined give Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006) a score of 3.1541 out of 4

based on (34) reviews

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Excellent

(12)

Very Good

(20)

Good

(2)

Fair

(0)

Poor

(0)

Reviews by Score:

The Onion (A.V. Club) (Noel Murray)

While Jonestown lacks the power of revelation, it's a first-rate piece of journalism, as fascinating and thorough as any magazine article. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at The Onion (A.V. Club) (Noel Murray)

Shadows on the Wall (Rich Cline)

"Nobody joins a cult." This startling truth launches a gripping, provocative documentary about one of history's most notorious cults, which ended in 1978 with the mass suicide of 909 men, women and children. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Shadows on the Wall (Rich Cline)

LA Weekly (Ella Taylor)

An excellent documentary by MacArthur fellow Stanley Nelson (The Murder of Emmett Till), offers no grand theories for the Jonestown phenomenon. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at LA Weekly (Ella Taylor)

Village Voice (J. Hoberman)

Nelson has fashioned a compelling movie around an unfathomable mystery. To see Jones's face, eyes hidden behind trademark aviator shades, is to experience the last shock in Psycho. His is the blank stare of living death. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Village Voice (J. Hoberman)

The New York Times (Stephen Holden)

As this powerful, minutely documented film reveals, the tragedy wasnâ��t caused by the failure of the Peoples Temple to realize its goals. In many ways, it was succeeding as a self-sufficient community. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at The New York Times (Stephen Holden)

Time Out

Jim Jones was the pastor/pervert who mixed fundamentalist Christian dogma with an odd strain of humanitarian socialism to form a bizarre commune (Jonestown) in the late 1960s which was very much a symptom of rural Americaâ��s growing distrust of its ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Time Out

Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)

"Nobody joins a cult," says a woman at the very beginning of Stanley Nelson's documentary "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple." "Nobody joins something they think is going to hurt them. You join a religious organization or you join a ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)

Baltimore Sun (Chris Kaltenbach)

Chilling doesn't begin to describe Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple...But the film never gets behind the chill. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Baltimore Sun (Chris Kaltenbach)

L.A. Daily News

The most shocking images in the Stanley Nelson's comprehensive and chilling documentary "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" aren't the familiar photos of bloated bodies lying huddled together in a jungle compound. It's the footage of ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at L.A. Daily News

Boston Globe (Ty Burr)

Harrowing and inexorable, the film recaptures the progressive insanity of Jim Jones and the hundreds of worshipers in his thrall, and it certainly gives you willies to last for days. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Boston Globe (Ty Burr)

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

To put the 1978 Jonestown mass murder-suicide in perspective, consider this: 909 Americans died in Jonestown, Guyana, after drinking poisoned Kool-Aid, while 168 were killed in the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in 1995. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

sneersnipe (Jane Elia)

In this masterful documentary, Emmy-winning producer-director Stanley Nelson (The Murder of Emmett Till (2003); A Place of Our Own (2004)) revisits the tragic drama of cult preacher Jim Jones, and the people who followed him to their deaths. Emerging in ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at sneersnipe (Jane Elia)

Slant Magazine

n the 1960s, there was a belief that the force of social change could revolutionize the world. Looking to various movements in search of answers, people opened themselves up to new spiritual and political answers, and among them was the multi-cultural, ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Slant Magazine

Karate Party

Jim Jones was responsible for the death of nearly a thousand people at commune in the jungles of Guyana that he and his followers called Jonestown. One of the most frightening cult stories in history, Jonestown takes its place in the company of other ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Karate Party

Film Threat (Phil Hall)

Provides lethal evidence of what becomes of those who deposit their sincerity into the command of a religious lunatic. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Film Threat (Phil Hall)

Variety (Ronnie Scheib)

PBS-bound docu constitutes a revealing look at a poorly understood chapter in American history. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Variety (Ronnie Scheib)

Salon.com (Andrew O'Hehir)

Two days into the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, the mood of this year's crop of independent films appears strikingly dark, even set against a clear, cool and lovely New York spring. It's as if this festival can't escape its roots. It was born while the dust ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Salon.com (Andrew O'Hehir)

culturevulture.net, Choices for the Cognoscenti

In 1978 cult leader Jim Jones ordered over 900 members of his Peoples Temple in Guyana to "drink the Kool-Aid" and commit mass self-extermination. Jones' order and execution have become as iconic the devil's pitch fork or Hitler's clipped mustache ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at culturevulture.net, Choices for the Cognoscenti

Pop Entertainment.com

The legacy of Jim Jones is so horrific that the world has had to look at it sideways just to digest and deal with it. In the nearly thirty years since the tragic mass suicides of Jonestown, Guyana, the occurrence has almost become trivialized. Maybe as ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Pop Entertainment.com

Greenwich Village Gazette (Eric Lurio)

Do you remember where the term â��drinking the kool-aideâ�� came from? If you're of a certain age, you'd know. It came from the biggest mass suicide in modern history: Jonestown, Guyana November 18, 1978. Every now and again, we have to be reminded ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Greenwich Village Gazette (Eric Lurio)