Be prepared to shed absolute buckets at the horrors. But, it isn't entirely bleak though, as the real message here is the lengths that people will go to in order to save a species.

| Feb 3, 2022

"Virunga" crackles with excitement as much as incitement as it vividly allows the audience to experience the park rangers' struggle to preserve their country's fragile infrastructure firsthand.

| Nov 20, 2018

It is a saddening look at the environmental consequences of corporate expansion and the innocent lives and creatures lost because of money.

| Original Score: A | Jul 3, 2018

The result is gorgeous and wrenching, the indelible chronicle of a impossible but essential fight.

| Jul 3, 2018

With enough action, pathos, suspense, venal villains, stalwart heroes and endangered gorillas for a dozen fiction films, von Einsiedel's extraordinary documentary Virunga lays out the complex of deadly forces threatening the titular national park...

| Jul 3, 2018

Virunga's biggest strength lies in never attempting to be one kind of documentary. There's an element of uncertainty, a sense of anxiety that one feels watching the film as at any moment it feels that something will go horribly wrong.

| Jul 3, 2018

Powerful doc pairs naturalism with political turmoil.

| Jul 3, 2018

Virunga is a potentially paradigm-shifting entry in the genre that deserves the kind of support and attention Blackfish and The Cove received.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 6, 2016

Creates a startling and tense glimpse into what it feels like for the regular folk of the area when the militias come rolling in and mortars start exploding.

| Mar 2, 2016

What makes von Einsiedel's film work so well is the human - and gorilla - face that he gives to the problem.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 22, 2015

The publicity campaign has focused on the movie's beautiful and endlessly watchable gorillas, but director Orlando von Einseidel's film is more 'Citizenfour' than Animal Planet: It's not so much a wildlife lament as an activist expos.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 19, 2015

This is not a nature documentary, though there are some beautiful scenes of wild spaces. This is war journalism, tense and upsetting.

| Feb 18, 2015

An inspiring documentary about three Africans in the Congo who demonstrate compassion and heroism in the midst of chaos and civil war.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 8, 2014

Outstanding but shattering docu set in war-torn Congo.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 11, 2014

The conflict in the Congo, as depicted here, is more than your everyday fight. It's a war for the soul of this place, on powerful, urgent display.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 10, 2014

A powerful documentary and gripping story, Virunga is a deftly-executed film that follows one of the most biologically diverse regions on Earth as violent militias and greedy companies look to take advantage of an unstable government.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Nov 7, 2014

Urgent investigative report and unforgettable drama, "Virunga" is a work of heart-wrenching tenderness and heart-stopping suspense.

| Nov 6, 2014

"Virunga" wrenches a startlingly lucid narrative from a sickening web of bribery, corruption and violence.

| Nov 6, 2014

The fights Virunga documents couldn't feel more urgent. This is one of the year's most compelling and important films.

| Nov 4, 2014

It's a first-rate call to action, but also a thrilling piece of filmmaking.

| Original Score: A- | Nov 4, 2014