Joanne Laurier World Socialist Web Site Mar 5, 2021

The documentary and accompanying book contain a good deal of valuable and harrowing material.

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David Lamble Bay Area Reporter Jun 1, 2020

Even the title of this nuanced and layered interrogation doesn't come into focus until the third act, as Oscar-winning doc-maker Errol Morris gets too close for comfort to the multiple deadly meanings behind the shocking pictures from Abu Ghraib prison.

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Dan DiNicola The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY) Mar 3, 2019

Errol Morris' documentary... should be seen by all Americans but probably will viewed only by a relative handful.

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Kaleem Aftab The List Nov 4, 2018

Morris eschews sensationalist reporting to conduct a procedural investigation that wonders what the photos tell us about the morality of those commanding the American forces.

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Ian Buruma The New York Review of Books Aug 29, 2018

Both Morris's film and the book based on it by Gourevitch are devastating, even without going into detail about the complicity, or indeed responsibility, of top officials in the Bush administration.

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A.S. Hamrah n+1 Apr 26, 2018

Morris is more interested in the pictures she's in than in England herself. He didn't need her in person to make this film. Yet there she is, dragged in to redeem herself so she can be admitted into humankind.

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Annie Wagner The Stranger (Seattle, WA) Aug 21, 2017

Standard Operating Procedure seeks answers to questions that are usually purely rhetorical: Who would do such a thing to another human being? And why would you want to photograph it?

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Michael Atkinson In These Times Apr 18, 2016

Morris' manic devotion to detail ultimately does the film in.

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Ray Pride Newcity Apr 8, 2014

A female face: unformed personalities the equivalent of the portrayal of naïveté by Sissy Spacek in "Badlands." An improbable horror movie about metadata and its discontents.

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Michael Chaiken Film Comment Magazine Nov 14, 2013

The film's bloody dramatizations...suggest a fundamental distrust of the efficacy of the word over the image and a bland assumption that audiences have lost their ability to empathize.

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Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Aug 9, 2011 C

A bore and a real pain to sit through.

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Brian Webster Apollo Guide Dec 5, 2008 79/100

Fascinating and horrifying, especially if you take a step back and view it thinking about what it tells us about the society in which these abuses took place.

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Jeffrey Chen Window to the Movies Nov 14, 2008 8/10

Examines both the mystery of primitive human instincts and the nature and power of photography.

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Peter Bradshaw Guardian Oct 18, 2008 4/5

For American military personnel to descend to Saddam's level was one of the worst moments in US history, and Morris's film reveals the truth: the poisonous Abu Ghraib pictures were not merely an American scandal but a human catastrophe.

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David D'Arcy Screen International Oct 18, 2008

Morris's distillation of long talks with young ex-soldiers and the female general who commanded prisons all over Iraq is among the best documentaries on the Iraq war.

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James Verniere Boston Herald Oct 18, 2008 B+

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Susan Tavernetti Palo Alto Weekly Oct 18, 2008 3.5/4

Haunting photographs and video seemingly point a finger at the low-ranking indicted soldiers. Equally haunting is the notion that journalists and the public assumed they had seen everything.

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Jean Lowerison San Diego Metropolitan Oct 18, 2008

Morris never gets close to the administrative attitude that apparently sanctioned, perhaps even encouraged the goings-on, despite Karpinski's contention that 'none of this produced useful intelligence.'

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Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid Oct 16, 2008

A worthwhile... meticulously reported film, splashed with [Morris'] own, unique style.

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Matthew Turner ViewLondon Jul 18, 2008 4/5

Engaging, well-made documentary that will provoke outrage, shock and horror in equal measure.

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