Unlike most racism-occupied documentaries that often conclude on a dark note, Williams uplifts his end with an honest, enlightened meaning of unity and an anti-racist society. There’s so much improvement and hope for a better nation.

| Original Score: B | Apr 5, 2024

'Black people know what they want. They know what freedom and liberation will look like. And it doesn't look like this radical utopia. It looks a lot like the world that white people live in. The world that white people living in never question.'

| Original Score: B | Jan 11, 2024

[Roger Ross Williams] comes with a really high pedigree for this type of project and completely knocks it out of the park.

| Original Score: A | Dec 14, 2023

...such can be said about much of the presentation that even extended for hours would fall short of capturing the impact of racism on Black Americans, but this iteration can and should be seen as another promising “beginning.”

| Dec 8, 2023

An ambitious, challenging documentary about the origins of racist ideas and sentiment, this film feels like it should be required viewing for everyone.

| Nov 27, 2023

The film does not pretend to be presenting radical or new beliefs. Yet by the end, it reveals the myths, the distortions and the made-up fallacies that have been presented as truth for centuries. And that is the most radical thing it could have done.

| Nov 25, 2023

If Ibram X. Kendi’s 2016 bestseller <em>Stamped from the Beginning</em> has been banned from your local library, Netflix has come to the rescue.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 22, 2023

Its relentless focus on historical wrongs could inadvertently fuel another wave of rebellion in America.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2023

Roger Ross Williams’s vigorous documentary on the history of racism in America is in some ways an introduction for beginners.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2023

A pointed look to the past to better understand the present, filmmaker Roger Ross Williams’ Stamped from the Beginning is a tremendous work of scholarship and education.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 20, 2023

In addition to interviews and archival images, film clips and news footage, Williams (“Cassandro” “Life, Animated”) leans into animation.

| Nov 20, 2023

Stamped from the Beginning is a bold attempt to animate the racist images that plague the American imagination.

| Original Score: 7.5/10 | Nov 20, 2023

Won't necessarily surprise those who already know this history, but may still be tough to watch for those sensitive to stories about the exploitation of marginalized people.

| Nov 20, 2023

Even if Stamped from the Beginning frequently weakens its more nuanced scholarship by drifting into Kendi’s trademark good vs. evil narratives, it’s undeniably a well-intentioned film that gets many things right.

| Original Score: B | Nov 18, 2023

Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (Life, Animated) presents a prolific and thought-provoking documentary about race in the United States.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 14, 2023

"Stamped from the Beginning" drives home Williams’ point that racism is deeply embedded in our culture and society and that it takes this kind of fury to talk about it adequately.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 10, 2023

In its own and detailed way, Stamped from the Beginning seeks and tells many truths...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 10, 2023

Will the US ever arrive at a point where “existing while Black” is not considered a crime? The beginning is chronicled here, but the end still feels a long way off.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 9, 2023

Provocative, well-edited and captivating.

| Nov 9, 2023

Beautifully edited and passionately argued, the film brings together an abundance of compelling evidence and potent imagery, including specially commissioned animation, powerfully flanked by the music of Public Enemy and Little Simz among others.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 8, 2023