The work as it stands now has considerable merit as a document recorded during a watershed period of the American civil rights movement. As a concert film, it's elevated by Franklin's powerhouse three-octave range and soulful phrasing.

| Dec 16, 2019

The long-buried concert film is a tremendously powerful tribute to Aretha Franklin.

| Dec 16, 2019

This musical feast was filmed a very long time ago - but it feels like only yesterday.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 16, 2019

In Amazing Grace, Aretha Franklin transcends the blues by saying a little prayer - or singing one - for all of us.

| Dec 16, 2019

It's a perfect marriage of faith and showbiz, dignified by the fact that there's nothing ersatz about it. At its heart is an unfeigned exuberance, together with a sense of history, which informs the tears, laughter and fervent expressions of belief.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 28, 2019

87 minutes of pure joy/

| Original Score: A- | Aug 5, 2019

Even though her legacy has been deeply embedded within pop culture, this is a new side of her that the film lets us witness.

| May 31, 2019

Franklin - focused, transcendentally beautiful and sweating profusely - takes us back to her roots.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 12, 2019

When a parishioner leaps to her feet, her spirit clearly moved, you'll want to do the same. Wholy Holy indeed.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 12, 2019

I felt wrung out at the end of this film. How incredible must it have been for those who were there in person.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 10, 2019

This is a film that revels in a titanic talent, and the details that an audio recording can never pick up. The close-ups are wonderfully intimate.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2019

Amazing Grace is as uplifting a film as you will see all year.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2019

If Amazing Grace can't fathom the inner depths of Aretha in any definitive way, it grants her a great deal more than a little respect.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2019

Glimpsed away from the mic, she sweeps past the camera with a Mona Lisa smile and no small talk. Between songs she again smiles and says nothing, that silence a story, her choice to be simply a vessel, not a star.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 8, 2019

Provides the authors of online listicles a permanent starting point when considering the 10 greatest concert films of all time.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 8, 2019

Surely the new gold standard of filmed music concerts?

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 8, 2019

Sydney Pollack's unfinished documentary, unearthed and reassembled after nearly 50 years, is a priceless gift to music fans.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 18, 2019

Even for those who do not believe that God's grace is amazing, it is hard not to see Franklin in her prime as something near miraculous, with a long-buried film serving as a witness in 16mm.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 12, 2019

Amazing Grace is a reminder that spirituality is deeply personal.

| Apr 11, 2019

You don't need to be a churchgoer to find "Amazing Grace" a soul-stirring, foot-stomping, hand-raising experience.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 11, 2019