Giving voice to Chau’s personal diary on top of its animated and live action hybridisation further enhances our connection to the man, thus making the exploration of his convictions and flaws all the more heartfelt.

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

A documentary that doesn't tell the viewer how to feel just tells the story and let's us decide

| Jan 8, 2024

...takes you into the strange world that led up to [Chau's] fateful encounter, including a a bro-tastic evangelical culture that frames such missions as righteous adventures.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 4, 2024

Providing equal weighting to both sides is an unusually hands-off approach [...] Ultimately, though, anyone watching this with an open mind will still come to the same moral conclusion — you’ll just be better informed about it.

| Dec 30, 2023

National Geographic's new documentary captures the obsession, devotion and delusion that led American missionary John Allen Chau to his death in the Andaman Islands.

| Dec 29, 2023

Successfully tackles the sociopathic, often sickening urge we continue to have to colonize, and proselytize.

| Dec 10, 2023

A documentary that will provoke discussion and debate about the ethical implications of Christian missionary work while examining the boundaries that perhaps humans shouldn’t cross on their quest to preach the word of their God.

| Dec 8, 2023

You might be puzzled by the film-makers’ own zeal: it’s hard to see exactly why they felt this tale had to be told. Still, the results are interesting in a “funny old world” sort of way.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2023

It is a bit overwhelming at times as directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss hit the audience with an overabundance of information as interviews, clips, animation, and home movies come at you at a fast pace. Still, a fascinating watch.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 19, 2023

The insidious and damaging colonial implications of missionary work are explored in The Mission...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 16, 2023

The Mission works on a lot of levels, from the aesthetic pleasure of its extensive painterly animation sequences to the variably questioning, sometimes humorous input from commentators.

| Nov 10, 2023

In Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moore’s thorough, thought-provoking documentary, questions arise about the role that Chau’s unwavering resolve to introduce the teachings of Christ to Indigenous people living off the North Sentinel Island played in his demise.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 8, 2023

In the National Geographic documentary The Mission, the results are as fascinatingly horrible as they are predictable -- even if you’re unfamiliar with the story that shocked the secular world a half-decade ago.

| Nov 6, 2023

It’s a measured, thought-provoking, and complex story with so many elements for filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss to parse through.

| Nov 2, 2023

Loved it. This is a Conradian voyage to the edge of the world, and it takes you into psychological territory I find incredibly compelling.

| Nov 1, 2023

I spent most of the film wanting to slap him silly... I was completely infuriated [by the subject].

| Nov 1, 2023

This is a marvelous documentary. Absolutely marvelous.

| Nov 1, 2023

By making an effort to understand and empathize with all points of view rather than simply resorting to ridicule, it makes for a sober, poignant telling of a fascinating tale of modern religious obsession.

| Original Score: B | Oct 31, 2023

McBaine and Moss are astonishingly even-handed, allowing for all those perspectives to be given consideration.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 30, 2023

[A] rich, skeptical yet compassionate portrait… a wildly prismatic work, filled with intense philosophical inquiry.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Oct 28, 2023