It's made with great authority; director Stacy Peralta, in his younger years, rode ramps with the best of them and was the movement's shrewdest self-promoter.

| Mar 16, 2020

The film's buoyancy is permissible in approximating the gusto that was the hallmark of the Z-Boys as they took their guerrilla surfing skills to the arena of skateboarding.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 22, 2019

Raw, baby, raw. That's what this documentary is, and that's why it's not meant for Blu-ray.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 26, 2012

Before Tony Hawk, skateboarding had the Z-Boys.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 2, 2011

Skateboard-legend-turned-filmmaker Stacy Peralta rips open the paradigm of the documentary form in much the same way that he and his young Santa Monica Zephyr Competition Skate Team revolutionized skateboarding in the mid-'70s.

| Original Score: A+ | Jul 1, 2010

Marred by a self-importance and heavy-handed assertion of mythic status that some may well find misplaced or just downright ridiculous.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2008

You want to know more about their private lives than you get. But most viewers may be too stoked by the sheer adrenaline rush of the subject to care.

| Nov 1, 2007

Package is lively, if loosely structured.

Full Review | Apr 2, 2007

This propulsive, highly satisfying 2002 documentary concerns a group of daredevil skateboarders from an economically depressed and dangerous area of Santa Monica known as Dogtown who reinvented the sport in the 70s.

| Apr 2, 2007

I know exactly nothing about skateboarding, but this wild, exuberant documentary puts it all in perspective, outlining a crew of 12 surfers-turned-skaters who pioneered the sport -- and, some say, the art form.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 26, 2006

Infectiously exuberant.

| Jan 26, 2006

Using the Zephyr team's creation, its sudden fame, and death by defection, Dogtown documents genuine 20th century tribalism.

| Jun 13, 2004

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 19, 2003

The straight cuts illustrate how the Zephyr team's revolutionary, riffing style was both an extension of surfing and aesthetically beautiful.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 20, 2003

There is something I find deeply disturbing about a documentary made about one's own life that never acknowledges its first person status.

| Jan 7, 2003

Quite possibly the best documentary about youth and sport since Hoop Dreams.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 23, 2002

It's an entertaining study for anyone, as it makes you believe that skateboarding is the ultimate guerilla sport -- taking something that exists and is shrugged off and turning it into something amazing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 8, 2002

The film fearlessly gets under the skin of the people involved ... This makes it not only a detailed historical document, but an engaging and moving portrait of a subculture.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 8, 2002

An enthusiastic ode to a few of the pioneers of extreme sports.

| Original Score: B | Nov 6, 2002

An affectionate look back at those heady days.

| Oct 21, 2002