Critic Reviews
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006) Rank 5 Reviews
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San Francisco Chronicle (G. Allen Johnson)
One of the year's most important documentaries, a real must-see. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at San Francisco Chronicle (G. Allen Johnson)
Reel.com
The Reverend Jim Jones did not pilot a plane into the World Trade Center. He did not leave a Ryder truck parked outside a federal building in Oklahoma City. He did not plant a bomb at the Atlanta Olympic games. He had nothing to do with any of the ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Reel.com
Entertainment Insiders (Warren Curry)
Late in Stanley Nelson's riveting documentary, "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple," a sign hanging in the pavilion of Jim Jones' religious community can be clearly seen. It reads: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Entertainment Insiders (Warren Curry)
Portland Oregonian (Shawn Levy)
A riveting and impeccably researched documentary. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Portland Oregonian (Shawn Levy)
Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)
This calm and thorough film has just the right attitude and tone to deal with a most incendiary story. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)
Lobo Howls (Judith Wolfe)
Don't drink the kool-aid has become part of the American lexicon. It's horrifying origin might be unknown to a younger generation. For those of us old enough to recall November 18, 1978 I doubt you could forget the nightmare of the worst mass suicide in ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Lobo Howls (Judith Wolfe)
New York Post (Kyle Smith)
Five people did escape, and they contribute their stories to the spellbinding documentary. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at New York Post (Kyle Smith)
Premiere (Aaron Hillis)
A conventional but genuinely heartrending exposé of the Indiana boy who grew to be a powerful religious cult leader, director Stanley Nelson's thoroughly researched doc is not a posthumous character assassination, which would be all too easy and ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Premiere (Aaron Hillis)
TV Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
Nelson's film eschews sensationalism, and knowing how the story ends in no way diminishes its visceral impact. ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at TV Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
Boston Globe
"Nobody joins a cult -- you just join people you really like," says one of the survivors in Stanley Nelson's documentary "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple." Harrowing ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Boston Globe
filmcritic.com (Chris Barsanti)
One can make plenty of cases for the moment when the '60s died. Some claim Altamont, while others go with the Manson murders. But even though it came well after the decade was dead and buried, the 1978 mass suicide in Guyana by almost the entire ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at filmcritic.com (Chris Barsanti)
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
What happens when religious zealotry blinds a church to the darkest impulses of a revered leader? There's no more shocking example than 1978's Jonestown massacre, the largest murder/suicide in modern history. After following their leader from California ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
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)
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 wasn’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)
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)
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)
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)
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
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)
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
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 America’s growing distrust of its ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Time Out
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)
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)
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 “drinking the kool-aide” 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)
Entertainment Weekly
Reverend, seducer, icon of warped Elvis cool, Jim Jones led the creepiest bad trip of the '70s the mass suicide of 900 of his followers in Guyana. This slipshod doc offers fascinating footage of Jones' silky malevolence (he has the eyes of a perverted ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at Entertainment Weekly
The Hollywood Reporter (Sheri Linden)
The grisly end of Jim Jones' would-be utopia has held a morbid fascination since 1978: How did a decades-long, church-based experiment in communal living lead to the murder and "revolutionary suicide" of more than 900 people in a tiny South American ...read the complete Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple movie review at The Hollywood Reporter (Sheri Linden)
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