AILEY is a loving look at a dance pioneer, meticulously thorough in its content yet never losing the joy, rage, and striving for excellence that characterised Ailey and generations of his disciples... Thoroughly engrossing and historically rich...

| Nov 30, 2023

The film works best when his collaborators, particularly artistic director Judith Jamison and guest choreographer Bill T. Jones, provide insight into Ailey’s private nature and his lonely artistic sojourn

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 16, 2023

A moving and vibrant look into the life of an artist that is structured in such a way that any viewer can take something meaningful from it.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 8, 2022

Equally intriguing as a capturing of Alvin Ailey's life story and as a celebration of the impact his career left behind; this is an easy recommendation and does the legendary artist the justice which he deserves.

| Feb 22, 2022

"'Ailey' is much more than a paint-by-the-numbers tribute and a touch less than a portrait fully translating his revolutionary contributions to the form."

| Feb 22, 2022

The most impressive thing about the film, however, are the dances, and dancers themselves, including Ailey himself, dancing as a young man. The film also makes a compelling argument that Ailey's giant influence has been overlooked for far too long.

| Original Score: B | Jan 22, 2022

Combining grainy archive footage and never-before-heard audio interviews with warm testimonials and breath-taking rehearsal and performance pieces, Ailey utilises every available tool in its box. Alas, it's a little too vague and unfocused.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 13, 2022

While this documentary pays tribute to the artist and his work, it ultimately crumbles under its breadth of scope.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 11, 2022

Ailey's story is interspersed with rehearsal scenes of a new work celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company he founded.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 10, 2022

Wignot makes good use of footage of dancers in action, and she assembles the film with an apt regard for movement and rhythm.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 10, 2022

A respectful, reverent and interesting portrait of Ailey, this is essential viewing for disciples of dance. For the rest of us, there is enough to learn who he was, but not to explain his renown.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 9, 2022

There's a sense of movement, a flow to the edit that is almost hypnotic in itself.

| Jan 7, 2022

Jamila Wignot's reverential but moving documentary explores the troubled but artistically triumphant life of African-American dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 7, 2022

This captivating documentary portrait of the choreographer Alvin Ailey, who died in 1989, treads a fine line between loving memorial and unfettered hagiography.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 7, 2022

Poeticism ebbs and flows throughout Wignot's impressonistic mediation, fluctuating in parts.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 7, 2022

What emerges is Ailey's lifelong seriousness and his vocational purpose in dance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 5, 2022

Leaves a strong impression from the sheer beauty of his iconic work and the awe-inspiring impact of his legacy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 30, 2021

A sweeping biofilm about the immensely creative Black choreographer and dancer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 24, 2021

That "place" in live performance is by nature evanescent, but its depiction in documentary film requires context and editorializing. Wignot's aestheticism works against both in Ailey, rendering the famously private artist as elusive as he was in life.

| Dec 8, 2021

Most appealing biopic on one of the greatest figures in the modern dance world.

| Original Score: B | Nov 23, 2021