An immense documentary reinforcing Kuti's status as one of Africa's bravest revolutionaries and musicians...

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 29, 2021

Despite Fela's lively subject matter, Gibney ultimately fails to offer any lasting form of personal perspective on the issues that surround it - gimmicks notwithstanding.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 11, 2019

It's not Gibney firing on all cylinders, but he still hits on some vital, enduring truths.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2019

Ultimately, Finding Fela loses its narrative backbone when it can no longer rely on gifted footage and must focus on the actual man.

| Sep 6, 2018

You have to learn to love his music, but once you do, it will take you to the deepest places of your soul. This film, which is built around the production of the musical, is for those who want to learn how to love Kuti.

| Sep 6, 2018

No doubt others will try again but, for now, we'll have to make do with Gibney's portrayal of the man via archive footage and interviews with various talking heads.

| Apr 26, 2017

[Gibney] raises a pertinent question: is it contradictory to beatify an avowed anti-capitalist revolutionary with an elaborately produced show?

| Original Score: Recommended | Mar 27, 2017

A fine introduction to a fascinating African musician

| Jul 31, 2015

It is the man himself that will draw you into this film, even if you are not a fan of musical documentaries.

| Feb 19, 2015

Fela Kuti was a one-in-a-million figure with indomitable presence. What film could possibly contain him?

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 7, 2014

The wild life, risky art and radical politics of an African revolutionary receive generally entertaining if inappropriately conventional treatment in this documentary...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 20, 2014

Leaves you tapping your feet and scratching your head about why such a rich story didn't generate a better, deeper, smarter movie.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 13, 2014

The problem isn't really finding Fela, but containing him.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 12, 2014

Gibney unearths a wealth of archive footage that reaffirms Kuti's superstar status, and watches as Jones wrestles with the contradictions that made the musician such a troublesome icon - confronting some, sidestepping others.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 7, 2014

Fela died in the late 1990s but Gibney has assembled plenty of footage of him performing, and he makes a convincing case for him as both a political and a musical visionary (and a relentless womaniser).

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 5, 2014

Finding Fela fully earns its two-hour running time, and could easily have sustained more, such is the wealth of material and music, and such is the brisk momentum maintained by Gibney and editor Lindy Jankura.

| Sep 5, 2014

Such was Kuti's star power that even the Tony-nominated Sahr Ngaujah feels like an unnecessary distraction from the archive performance footage.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 5, 2014

Kuti made politics to dance to, and music that made you think. The slick presentation of Gibney's film successfully gets that appeal across, but the method feels compromised.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 4, 2014

Long and undisciplined.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 4, 2014

While the eventful life of Fela Kuti provides more than enough subject matter for a biographical documentary, award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney weakens the film with a second narrative strand that feels like another movie altogether.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2014