This seventh installment is utterly fascinating, drawing heavily on footage from the previous movies to follow each child on the journey into middle age.

| Aug 14, 2012

Essential viewing

| Aug 28, 2009

There should not be an adult in the western world who isn't at least tacitly familiar with Michael Apted's groundbreaking documentary series based on the idea that a person's personality is formed by the age of seven.

| Original Score: A | Apr 24, 2009

In 42 years has the series brought any insight into issues of class, politics, or culture? Perhaps only insofar as nearly all the participants, regardless of background, end up as the same bourgeois, middle-aged mediocrities.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 23, 2009

Time-lapse cinematography taken at seven year intervals.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 29, 2007

Even those wondering about the gaps and "missing pieces" or what will happen in the future will not be disappointed by this remarkable work.

| Mar 1, 2007

The wonder of 49 Up is its unfolding, within a little more than two hours, of so many specific lives...

Full Review | Nov 11, 2006

Michael Apted's Up series remains one of the great imaginative leaps in film.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 3, 2006

I can think of no single movie, fictional or factual, that more strongly awakens our common humanity or that establishes such a marvelous, tight bond with its characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 2, 2006

If there's a more remarkable series of documentary films, or even as remarkable a premise for one, I don't expect to see it in my lifetime.

| Oct 28, 2006

Doesn't tell us about these people's lives so much as it splashes a cold hourglass of water in the face, reminding us that time can slowly turn us into someone unrecognizable, especially to ourselves.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2006

The segments are so cleverly arranged -- [director Michael Apted] includes past pictorial references for each of the people we revisit -- that now there is something almost mystical involved.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2006

Apted continues his seminal docu series with another riveting chapter. The film no longer belongs to him: Feeling their privacy has been invaded, the subjcets talk back, trying to shape their own narrative and even withhold vital information from him.

| Original Score: A | Oct 26, 2006

A reality show that transcends that now-hackneyed phrase to become an utterly unique work of 'popular history'--and of art.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 22, 2006

As a viewer, I feel privileged to be able to peer into their private lives perchance to learn something useful about my private life.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 16, 2006

But a funny thing happened on the way to the class-warfare lecture: Most of the subjects got on with living their lives, ignoring their class distinctions in the process.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 13, 2006

I'll wait breathlessly for 56 Up, and hope this brave group will speak to the camera again; giving us the gift of a share in their lives.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 13, 2006

Now, they are middle-aged, and (unfair to spoil small surprises here) embedded in life with some learned wisdom.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 13, 2006

Surprisingly, the discussions of normal, average-life events are pretty fascinating and relatable. The films continue to be part of a moving sociological portrait of England and everyday life.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 13, 2006

The monumental 7 Up series continues with a lesser but worthwhile chapter, 49 Up.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 12, 2006