The First Wave is a hard-hitting documentary that tugs on each and every heartstring.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 19, 2024

It all makes for a piercing experience. One that I can see impacting generations with its clear-eyed perspective on that terrible first wave.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2022

The First Wave is an unsettling but urgently necessary chronicle of the conditions in one of New York's hardest-hit hospital systems during the frustrating first four months of the pandemic, captured with unflinching candor.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 14, 2022

It all adds up to a tender, clear-eyed snapshot of a devastating moment in recent history.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 17, 2022

While there is palpable tension throughout The First Wave, its also full of intimate, human moments due to the camaraderie that develops among doctors and nurses and between staff members and patients.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 27, 2022

This movie is about reality, the inescapable kind of reality that can be ignored, but not avoided. For a hint of how bad it can get for the unvaccinated, watch this film about how bad it was before there was a vaccine.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 5, 2022

Filmed over the course of the first few months of COVID-19's onslaught in New York, it is harrowing and heartbreaking in equal measure.

| Dec 29, 2021

The First Wave may be awkwardly inchoate as a document of this pandemic but, as a testament to those who serve to heal us, it's indelible.

| Dec 24, 2021

While there is light at the end of this particular tunnel, the well-crafted First Wave, like other COVID documentaries to date, emphasizes the harrowing immediacy of a lethal emergency.

| Dec 10, 2021

It's a tribute to the courage of all those who stayed the course and a reminder of how much is still at stake.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 9, 2021

It's a haunting, harrowing, but vital and important tribute.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 8, 2021

Heineman's documentary won't tell you anything new, but it's a poignant tribute to medical workers in a hard-hit city.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 8, 2021

Heineman has crafted a superb film, both hugely moving and tremendously inspiring.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 26, 2021

This is war reportage. But unpacking the metaphor of battle, so casually thrown around in the past 21 months, is part of the film's value.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 25, 2021

A gruelling and remarkable portrait of healthcare workers under extreme duress and patients laid out with a crippling illness for which no-one was adequately prepared.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 24, 2021

[A] gripping, powerful documentary...

| Nov 24, 2021

[The First Wave is] an ornamental object, one that is so pointlessly self-assured in its aesthetic manipulations.

| Nov 23, 2021

This remarkable film feels like it could become a time capsule, showing future generations what it felt like in 2020 for those on the frontline.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 23, 2021

Since COVID-19 is still far from over at present, it made for a difficult watch.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 23, 2021

This film portrays the perseverance of a community ravaged beyond imagination. And it ends with the sobering knowledge that [more] was coming.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 21, 2021