Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 14, 2010

An unusual and compelling documentary featuring eight thinkers musing on philosophical matters as they walk in creative places.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 25, 2010

For those interested in seeing philosophers on the screen, this engaging movie offers the opportunity to see eight of them walking the streets.

| Nov 27, 2009

The ones that work, Cornel West and Peter Singer for example, are intriguing and compelling but they don't all hang together so effortlessly.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2009

You can't help but feel that director Astra Taylor fails at her own challenge of making an academic subject come truly alive as cinema.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2009

A fascinating introduction to the big issues in modern philosophy, presented with a pleasantly light touch.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2009

Never dull, but it will make your head hurt.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2009

Each of the half-dozen or so thinkers gets around 20 minutes to maunder on - simultaneously not long enough and far too long. Frustratingly, no subject is investigated in depth, and the glibness is dull.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 20, 2009

This is an addictive and stimulating experience all round.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2009

Eccentric but always accessible, Taylor's boff-doc avoids the idiosyncrasy that her work has previously exhibited. In bringing philosophy into the real world, Examined Life is at once illuminating and intellectually stimulating.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2009

A film that can haunt you for the rest of your life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2009

Although a sporadically stimulating and thoroughly challenging exercise, Examined Life too often feels like a forum for brainy big-thinkers' annoying penchant for being as inscrutable as possible.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 23, 2009

Taylor's stimulating film, enlivened by creative location shooting, will surely find an appreciative audience among highbrow cinephiles.

Full Review | Sep 1, 2009

Director-writer Astra Taylor wisely avoids turning this talk fest into a talking heads fest by filming these effusive intellectuals in a variety of visually diverting, real-world environments.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 1, 2009

Yes, examining philosophy for the greater effect it can have is admiral but it seems to get lost as the film jumps from one personality to another.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 30, 2009

There's plenty of food for thought here, though the movie is more a buffet than a meal.

| Apr 24, 2009

To [director Astra] Taylor's credit it's as inviting and accessible as a smart conversation with fascinating friends.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 23, 2009

She gives eight thinkers 10 minutes each to unload on tough topics like the meaning of life and right and wrong and comes up mostly with a lot of platitudes about treating other people nice.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 23, 2009

Watching "Examined Life" is sort of like sitting on a plane next to a total stranger who insists on making conversation. Except this is that one time out of 100 when the stranger turns out to be a completely fascinating person.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 18, 2009