This documentary doesn’t convey any tidy life lesson or solid solution. It does however humanize these students who are each 1 in 100,000 to universities.

| Jul 21, 2024

"Try Harder!" is a funny, moving, and surprisingly joyful look at that moment in your life where the world seems both terrifying and full of possibilities. It may even help its audience to look back on that period with more affection.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 8, 2022

Set at a top-ranked public high school in San Francisco, the film explores such issues as the stress put on students during said process and the intersectionality of how this affects kids from different backgrounds, including the children of immigrants...

| Apr 8, 2022

Parents and teens should watch this film together, encourage their PTSAs to host screenings and discussions, and internalize the messages about the ludicrous amount of pressure that so many high achieving students feel to go to the same 20 colleges.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 1, 2022

Try Harder!...is never anything less than whipsmart.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 27, 2021

(Director Debbie) Lum is as fascinated with these students as we are, taking us on a journey good for the soul, the heart, and the mind.

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

It's a really well-crafted mix of the specific and the particular of the individual, and the larger. universal story of how screwed up the college admissions system have gotten.

| Dec 7, 2021

A really excellent documentary that takes a look with heart, humor, and some heaviness at what these teenage kids have to go through on their quest to get into college.

| Dec 7, 2021

It's all about discovering why one is trying harder, and to what end. Know that, and anything is possible.

| Dec 4, 2021

This smart, savvy documentary does a great job in putting faces and stories behind students who are seen as computers.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 3, 2021

Quiet yet assertive, "Try Harder!" itself succeeds at not trying too hard.

| Dec 2, 2021

Try Harder! registers as less a probing reflection of its sociopolitical environment than a carefully groomed product of its filmic context.

| Nov 19, 2021

An endearing, fun, and honest understanding of student pressures...

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 18, 2021

The greatest strength of Try Harder! is how it finds moments where these remarkable kids' personalities shine through. We can see beyond the grade-grubbing, SAT-obsessed high achiever persona into who these students actually are.

| Aug 24, 2021

This documentary is too fast-paced and engaging to be a downer, but on the other hand you don't really envy the pressure its likable young subjects are under.

| May 17, 2021

"Try Harder!" puts human faces on the college admissions fiasco, prompting viewers to empathize with overachievers unaccustomed to failure and whose self-worth is inextricably tied to which universities they get into.

| Apr 3, 2021

Peppered with joy and desperation, Try Harder! finds realness in an absurd, machine-like process.

| Original Score: B | Mar 17, 2021

Debbie Lum's doc chronicles the excruciating process of the American college application with a light-hearted and well-rounded approach.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 27, 2021

An interesting film about how kids pursue things without knowing why, at its best when occasionally digging deeper into issues of race, stereotypes, and privilege.

| Feb 20, 2021

It's a very funny movie about a bunch of students trying to find their way through a system that is designed to keep them out rather than let them in.

| Feb 10, 2021