A lightly-indulgent passion project that leaves us wanting so much more.

| Aug 8, 2024

That one man’s offhand pun could be another man’s life-long pain is an affecting reminder of the ease with which we can hurt others and the difficulty of letting go.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 12, 2024

What elevates all of this from navel-gazing bitterness is McCarthy’s increasing awareness that, much as he may have wished otherwise, he really was part of a cultural moment.

| Jul 5, 2024

Three words coined four decades ago might appear to be a flimsy framework for a documentary but Brats uses a deceptively light touch to both indulge movie-star memories and start a sharp conversation about purpose and self-belief.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 5, 2024

The documentary is still a lovely hit of nostalgia, peppered with clips and interviews (Ally Sheedy is sweet, Jon Cryer is funny, Timothy Hutton talks about bees) and includes insights from various contributors as to why the films were so potent.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 1, 2024

Watching it, I felt something quite different from what McCarthy, now 61, intended: a shimmering nostalgia for the once-great power of magazines.

| Jun 28, 2024

McCarthy seems to have gotten what he needed from the experience. Whether that’s true of viewers may depend on their fondness for him and his cohort, but there’s clearly no shortage of that all these years later.

| Jun 18, 2024

It's a fascinating, personalized exploration of an iconic cultural moment and its continued fallout.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 17, 2024

At first, Brats feels like watching a man poke at his own bruises.

| Jun 14, 2024

A journey brimming with nostalgia, pop culture potency and a bittersweet look back at youthful times.

| Jun 14, 2024

It’s cat nip to Gen Xers like me who grew up enamored of the Brat Pack.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2024

The strength of “Brats,” a new documentary debuting on Hulu, derives from its weirdness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2024

It’s an ambitious, introspective look at how pop culture and acting careers can be shaped by reputation and even just a nickname.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2024

The film’s through-line of woundedness is by turns touching, irritating and occasionally illuminating.

| Jun 13, 2024

Now, some 40 years later, actor- filmmaker Andrew McCarthy examines the phenomenon and tries to figure out why he's still impacted by the "Brat Pack" stigma in the emotionally authentic and nostalgia-tinged documentary...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 13, 2024

While it’s fun seeing "The Breakfast Club" as they near “The Early-Bird Dinner Club” years, this is one of those projects that would have benefited from a more journalistic tone.

| Jun 13, 2024

... It would have behooved the director, amid his own seemingly self-obsessed rant about a nearly 40-year-old moniker, to also think about the advantages he was also granted with it that eluded many others.

| Jun 13, 2024

A strange but worthy watch: cringey here, unexpectedly revelatory there, sincere and blinkered and articulate and dumb.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 13, 2024

"Brats" is a heartfelt memoir and a reflection on the power of words and perception.

| Jun 13, 2024

McCarthy’s visual style is too fragmented, happy to capture his scrambling camera and sound operators in the frame and changing up his shots from guerilla-style jerky iPhone images to tasteful, polished portraits.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 12, 2024