Most rockumentaries lack rigor, affection, and a critical eye when approaching their subjects, but [Elvis Presley: The Searcher] does so and looks at this complex idol with warmth. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jul 27, 2022

Elvis was a star before he had matured as a human being, and his soaring fame ensured he would continue to live in a bubble.

| Aug 1, 2021

Elvis Presley: The Searcher is the definitive portrait of an American icon, and how, for better or worse, our icons aren't too different from our own national identity.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 30, 2018

This documentary is a chronicle of a life lived as well as a celebration of American music.

| Aug 29, 2018

The resulting film is culled from the Presley archive, and includes such unseen gems as a recording of Elvis's mother Gladys singing gospel music.

| Jun 12, 2018

Definitive, broad-ranging, hard-nosed and compassionate.

| May 25, 2018

HBO's Elvis Presley: The Searcher, a two-part, three-hour documentary that focuses on Presley's performance and artistry rather than his mere legend or his well documented decline before his early death in 1977, aims to correct that.

| Apr 18, 2018

The film is full of facts, but none of them are showcased in a new light. Luckily most of the music speaks for itself.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 18, 2018

HBO documentary paints an in-depth portrait that his fans will find surprising

| Apr 18, 2018

HBO's three-and-a-half hour Elvis Presley: The Searcher ... is an evocative documentary without malice.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 16, 2018

Director Tom Zimny keeps the focus either on vintage clips or newly filmed, lovingly shots crawling over every inch of Graceland.

| Apr 16, 2018

Zimny does the smartest thing a music documentarian can do: he lets the songs breathe, and speak for the artist.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 14, 2018

When the subject is the specific sound of Elvis's music - the component parts and how they ultimately combine and fuse - The Searcher is an absolute banger

| Apr 13, 2018

Elvis Presley: The Searcher is an art documentary, one supposes, and such things might be considered immaterial, if only the film weren't so selective otherwise in integrating the personal with the musical.

| Apr 13, 2018

Elvis Presley: The Searcher convincingly finds what Elvis may have been looking for.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 13, 2018

Thanks to The Searcher, we can remember just how swingin' [the time] was. How it rocked.

| Apr 13, 2018

The question The Searcher asks is whether fans expected too much of Presley. As the documentary points out, there was no precedent for how an "aging rock star" behaved, pre-Elvis-because there'd never been a rock star like him before.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 13, 2018

I've listened to Elvis Presley so much over the years, read so many books about him, seen so much video footage of him, that I came to Elvis Presley: The Searcher thinking I'd skim over it... I ended up watching every second.

| Apr 13, 2018

Here is Elvis, rehabbed at last and brought down from his lofty and lunatic afterlife as an icon, reminding us that he was once just a man.

| Apr 13, 2018

Elvis Presley: The Searcher feels like a long overdue act of artistic redress.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 13, 2018