The release of Poitras' film has become the occasion for large portions of the American media to vent their malicious hatred of Assange.

| Feb 11, 2021

Filmmaker Laura Poitras seems deeply conflicted yet committed to tell the truth in her new documentary.

| Jul 17, 2020

Risk is essential viewing and easily the first must-see documentary I've seen this year.

| May 6, 2020

Unlikeable and narcissistic as he appears, Assange is still a prime example of how flawed people can accomplish important things, and Poitras's free access to Assange makes her documentary an important piece of filmmaking.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 16, 2019

Risk is an interesting portrait of a contentious figure, but it becomes completely bogged down in an ethical quagmire.

| Nov 8, 2018

There's something unsettling about a man who claims to wage a war against secrets yet refuses to be open about himself, and Poitras is only able to find the slightest cracks in that façade.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2018

Poitras lacked either the nerve or the time to make of herself a truly unreliable narrator, and so a film with the potential for two unreliable narrators falters for having none.

| Aug 21, 2018

Seemingly pieced together by spare parts and competing ideas.

| Aug 21, 2018

Fascinating as Assange goes from being simply an interesting yet controversial new celebrity figure to an increasingly ungovernable and unlikable character.

| Feb 9, 2018

There's nothing wrong with Poitras wanting to delve further into what makes Assange tick; it's just a half-hearted attempt, diffusing the primary through line.

| Jan 26, 2018

An uneven cinema verite-style political documentary.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 1, 2018

It is clear that Poitras is more than fair with Julian Assange in this documentary about him, but this depiction of Assange is probably not flattering enough to satisfy him or his more rabid supporters.

| Original Score: B | Dec 31, 2017

Poitras places her unreliability on centre stage, and in doing so, makes sure that we're acutely aware of how she - and indeed Julian Assange - want us to digest each frame of Risk.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 28, 2017

Risk gives us the most unfiltered look at Assange we've seen. In the end, it shows us a complex man you'll have more questions about than answers after seeing the movie.

| Dec 18, 2017

It's obvious before even its first scene that this is a compromised film for a liberal filmmaker to be pursuing and this internal struggle is obvious throughout. It's also what makes the finished product entirely fascinating.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 2, 2017

Risk tries to peel back the facade, but ultimately fails to succeed in giving us anything particularly new or radical.

| Aug 29, 2017

Poitras captures all of this in images that shimmer with clarity and precision. There's something wonderfully clear-eyed about Risk, even as the questions and moods it ignites are murky and unsettling.

| Aug 10, 2017

Risk doesn't concern itself overly with the history or role played by WikiLeaks, but rather with the man at the centre.

| Aug 4, 2017

Risk brings an odd lack of focus to Poitras's dour exercise, made no more convincing by her flat voice-over interjections.

| Aug 4, 2017

Despite taking a year to recut the film following its Cannes premiere in 2016, it's not apparent Poitras and co-editor Melody London found 'the film' at all.

| Original Score: Not Recommended | Jul 24, 2017