- 9
...considerably less slick than An Inconvenient Truth, and no less urgent.
—Peter Rainer Christian Science Monitor
- 8
...hugely effective...
—Ken Fox TV Guide
- 8
To judge from all the gas-guzzlers still fouling the air and the plastic bottles clogging the dumps, it appears that the news that we are killing ourselves and the world with our greed and garbage hasn't sunk in. That's one reason The 11th Hour, an unnerving, surprisingly affecting documentary about our environmental calamity, is such essential viewing.
—Manohla Dargis New York Times
- 8
It's the scariest and most worthwhile Nova episode you'll ever see.
—Chris Barsanti filmcritic.com
- 7
...dazzling style can redeem even the creakiest, most ostensibly pointless material.
—Mike D'Angelo Village Voice
- 7
...unabashedly a documentary of talking heads, but it works.
—Kevin Crust Los Angeles Times
- 7
...the message of The 11th Hour is far more compelling than the film itself.
—Gary Goldstein Reel
- 7
...persuasively damning...
—Aaron Hillis Premiere
- 6
...a distinctly expressive work, one that seeks to win hearts and minds not simply via an onslaught of charts, graphs, and facts, but through haunting, frightening, and inspiring cinematic sequences designed for maximum emotional effect.
—Nick Schager Slant Magazine
- 6
...alternately impassioned, despairing, edifying, and hectoring about all the ways humans are screwing up the earth in a death rattle of hubris...
—Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly
- 6
...ultimately a triumph of redemptive ideas that DiCaprio -- God bless his celebrity -- may finally succeed in transporting from the environmental fringe to the mainstream moviegoing audience.
—Judith Lewis LA Weekly
- 6
...well-intentioned...
—Lou Lumenick New York Post
- 6
...manages to be more ambitious but ultimately less effective [than An Inconveient Truth].
—Jason Lynch People
- 5
...unfurls a lengthy scroll of talking points about the fraught state of the planet. If it gets people thinking about which light bulbs they buy and their current gas mileage and such, then it's good to have it in the world. It is, however, a panicky blur as documentaries go.
—Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune
- 5
I agree with every word in this tedious documentary.
—Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times
- 4
There is no room for reason or compelling data in this grossly manipulative and sloppy propaganda flick. The filmmakers are simply out to break you. They want your palms raw and bloody from hysterical hand-wringing, your back broken from crushing guilt and your eyes stinging with tears of shame. They would also like you to recycle.
—N.V. Cooper E!
- 3
...arrives as Inconvenient Truth's evil twin: a film that's so restlessly, numbingly cinematic that it can barely communicate its message.
—Tasha Robinson Onion AV Club