Meticulously researched and filled with colourful characters, Frederic Tcheng's absorbing documentary Halston will be essential viewing for anyone interested in the world of fashion.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 20, 2019

Hard-partying designer Halston goes under the microscope in this hit-and-miss doc.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 20, 2019

Tcheng treats the film like a film noir... It's a homage to the narrators in Citizen Kane and Sunset Blvd but it's unnecessary. The historical footage is good enough to sustain the story.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 18, 2019

Directed by Frederic Tcheng, who's made a specialty of chic fashion-designer documentaries, this film celebrates Halston's work but shows more interest in the man - and the unexpected corporate drama - behind it.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 9, 2019

How can you stay mad at something so chock full of delicious detail about a man who actually lined his office walls with mirrors?

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 14, 2019

Unusual framing device aside, Halston is on balance a solid and affectionate tribute to an American original.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 7, 2019

Some dead weight in the framing flourishes, but still an entertaining, well-researched documentary.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 7, 2019

The archive clips suggest Halston is a role Richard E Grant was born to play: the designer had a long-limbed loucheness, grandiose affectations and put-on accent, along with a fierce perfectionism.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 7, 2019

French director Frédéric Tcheng seems to be cornering the market on docs about fashion... but his decision to bookend and drop in narration with a fictional character,... is a distracting and unneeded device.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 6, 2019

A tour through some of the most pivotal moments in the history of American style, Halston's career a golden thread running from the pillbox hat worn by Jackie Kennedy... to the decadent 1970s in which he dressed half of Studio 54.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 6, 2019

Though the film reveals more about Halston than those even in his inner circle may have known, he still feels untouchable by the time the fabulously engrossing film concludes. Maybe that's what Halston always wanted...

| Jun 4, 2019

Unfortunately, just as Halston did in life, this documentary avoids delving deeply into the mysterious man.

| May 30, 2019

The underlying, more interesting documentary here, however, is concerned with understanding the why.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 30, 2019

It's an understatement to say that Tcheng is drawn to this material. He revels in it. Yet he's too clear-eyed to turn Halston's story into a morality tale.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 30, 2019

As much as he would probably like to ignore it, Tcheng refuses to turn the film's attention away from Capitalism's brutal grip on art.

| May 24, 2019

A thoroughly researched rise and fall story with artistic flair and a noir-esque cinematic mystique.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 24, 2019

The pictures, footage, biography, news and gossip are the opposite of a Halston dress - unruly, busy, fussed over. But they come at you with an energy that feels substantial.

| May 23, 2019

Ignore the film's foolish framing device with Tavi Gevinson playing fashion detective and a fascinating portrait emerges of Halston as a flawed icon whose designs captured an era and still take your breath away.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 23, 2019

Halston thoughtfully captures both a meteoric rise and a dramatic fall to earth.

| May 21, 2019

It's a quintessential cautionary tale, supported by reams of glamorous archival footage and the recollections of longtime friends like Joel Schumacher and Liza Minelli.

| Original Score: B | May 9, 2019