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

The access is impressive, and the oily, paranoid and "ruthlessly pragmatic" persona that emerges here is candid enough despite Poitras's intermittent narration.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 2, 2017

A serviceable portrait of vanity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 30, 2017

Julian Assange is less than delighted by Laura Poitras's intimate documentary, filmed over six years with the co-operation of the controversial founder of WikiLeaks.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 30, 2017

It's to Poitras's credit that she tries delving into the subtler, more inward and more intransigent workings of the Assange brain. Her spoon here is shaped more like a surgical scalpel.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 29, 2017

A jaw-dropping profile of one man's battle with world governments, common decency and his own out-of-control ego.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 28, 2017

For all its proximity, Poitras' film never gets beneath [Assange's] exterior.

| May 12, 2017

There's no doubt that the world needs more iconoclasts, whistle-blowers and anti-authoritarian rabble-rousers. But it deserves better than Julian Assange.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 12, 2017

Interesting if uneven ...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 11, 2017

"Risk" makes a case that character is stronger than idealism or ideology - that who you are will always trump what you hope to achieve.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 11, 2017

The most salient feature of Risk is how Poitras remains non-judgmental throughout.

| May 8, 2017

We may not get a perfect documentary with Risk, but at least we get a very real and truthful sense of just how hard these kinds of movies are to make.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 8, 2017

It's telling that Poitras has assigned that particular name to her portrait of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 6, 2017

The result is a searing portrait of Assange as a man pitted against his cause, an egomaniacal advocate who may or may not care about the ramifications of his work.

| Original Score: B+ | May 5, 2017

Risk's strongest point is in its insistence that portraying one need not come at the expense of the other, that misogyny and acts of alleged abuse are in no way negated by some grander-scaled pursuit of justice.

| May 5, 2017

A messier, weirder, and more interesting documentary than Citizenfour, about a messier, weirder, and more persistently relevant man.

| May 5, 2017

Poitras has delivered a sporadically fascinating but finally opaque, incomplete portrait, one made no more illuminating by the fact its inscrutable subject doesn't find the likeness flattering.

| May 5, 2017

Whether or not it was Poitras' intention, Risk reminds us that grand ideals are finally no grander than the flawed human beings who bring them to life.

| May 5, 2017

This doc feels superficial and even redundant, especially if you've seen Alex Gibney's fascinating 2013 documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. It's a real disappointment

| May 5, 2017

Another fascinating piece of cinema-as-history that reminds us that Laura Poitras remains one of our most original, courageous and valuable filmmakers.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 5, 2017