Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review Feb 26, 2022 3.5/4

Meeting Gorbachev is about looking into the past from one man's perspective and seeing how a missed opportunity can unravel the entire planet.

Go to Full Review

David Walsh World Socialist Web Site Feb 11, 2021

The film is a mass of contradictions the muddle-headed Herzog never stops to try and reconcile.

Go to Full Review

Vladan Petkovic Cineuropa Sep 18, 2020

Fell short of expectations.

Go to Full Review

Jim Ross Cinetopia May 22, 2020

On the face of it, this could be quite a hard sell, but it's not and the reason for that is the approach taken to questioning. It's not about dryly what happened and instead how Gorbachev feels about it.

Go to Full Review

Lucy Tiven Hyperallergic Feb 26, 2020

The film tends to move laterally between private memory, public spectacle, kitsch newscasts, and pithy historical asides. It portrays nostalgic recreations of a lost country with a faintly surreal, dreamlike texture.

Go to Full Review

James Croot The Post NZ Jan 22, 2020 4/5

Werner Herzog has a knack for unearthing colourful characters with fascinating stories.

Go to Full Review

Ryan Silberstein Cinema76 Jan 21, 2020

Meeting Gorbachev is neither shocking nor provocative, but it certainly provides a window into the former world leader, as well as Herzog himself.

Go to Full Review

Matt Cipolla The Spool Jan 17, 2020

Aside from Herzog's sinewy delivery, much of Meeting Gorbachev feels like a regurgitated textbook with lots to recount but not much to say.

Go to Full Review

David Parkinson Radio Times Nov 11, 2019 3/5

Werner Herzog never quite recovers from having his opening question slapped down in this fitfully revealing, but always intriguing encounter with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Go to Full Review

Tom Birchenough The Arts Desk Nov 11, 2019 4/5

Herzog may usher his subject through a kind of swansong lifetime achievement testimony, but Meeting Gorbachev is also a film about the dying of the light...

Go to Full Review

Paul Whitington Irish Independent Nov 11, 2019 4/5

[A] succinct and intimate documentary.

Go to Full Review

Aine O'Connor Sunday Independent (Ireland) Nov 11, 2019 4/5

It's fascinating and moving.

Go to Full Review

Tom Shone Sunday Times (UK) Nov 11, 2019 3/5

Herzog captures a moment in history when, for a moment, it genuinely seemed as if the good guys had won.

Go to Full Review

Kevin Maher The Times (UK) Nov 11, 2019 4/5

Leave it to Werner Herzog. The iconoclastic German film-maker ditches the documentary rule book for this intimate profile of the 88-year-old former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Go to Full Review

Donald Clarke Irish Times Nov 8, 2019 3/5

For all [its] flaws, Meeting Gorbachev remains a fascinating study of a remarkable life.

Go to Full Review

Peter Bradshaw Guardian Nov 8, 2019 3/5

Despite the film's obvious interest, it is a bit conceited and stately, a little like Wim Wenders' movie about Pope Francis, though without the sycophancy. Or almost.

Go to Full Review

Alistair Harkness Scotsman Nov 8, 2019 3/5

Running through Gorbachev's life story and the seismic political changes he oversaw, Herzog frames him as a tragic figure whose decency and genuineness was his undoing - a pretty bleak but necessary reminder of how easily good work can be reversed.

Go to Full Review

Paddy Kehoe RTÉ (Ireland) Nov 8, 2019 5/5

Alas, the sweets do not have sugar but they are at least chocolates.

Go to Full Review

Lou Thomas Little White Lies Nov 7, 2019 3/5

An important and interesting documentary about tumultuous times, then, but one that slightly suffers for being a touch too dry and over-friendly towards its subject.

Go to Full Review

Nigel Andrews Financial Times Nov 6, 2019 3/5

Meeting Gorbachev a Werner Herzog documentary with a difference: it could be a documentary by anyone. It is that maddeningly bland.

Go to Full Review