It's the cutaways between songs that stitch it all together with an emotional thread that charts its subject's struggles over the decades.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 29, 2019

A lovely film that delves deep into the history of Bruce [Springsteen], particularly his young life.

| Oct 28, 2019

A lovely companion piece to the latest album from the legendary musician.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 25, 2019

Throughout, Springsteen proves prophet and poet, a rhinestone cowboy still barreling down the highway of life. "Western Stars" is yet another exit on his epic journey.

| Original Score: A | Oct 24, 2019

For Springsteen diehards - I'm raising my hand now - this is not the rich visual expansion of a very good album that its author hoped to make.

| Oct 24, 2019

Now he's taken the reins as a movie director for a visual companion to his recently released, same-named album... that in its intimacy and honesty plays as if this is the way these songs were always meant to be enjoyed.

| Oct 24, 2019

"Western Stars," Bruce Springsteen's best album in years, makes for an enchanting movie that looks bravely ahead at the open road while casting a longing glance in the rear-view mirror.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 24, 2019

The energy here is controlled, the mood reflective. These character-driven songs are populated by the washed-up and the run-down - an aging actor, a hitchhiker - and the shared themes are remembrance and regret.

| Oct 24, 2019

I have to admit to not being 100% sold on the cowboy-inflected songs, which feature quite a bit of dime-store sentimentality. But Springsteen is undoubtedly magnetic, his voice a honeyed growl.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 24, 2019

It is, clearly, a valentine for hardcore "Bruuuuuce" fans, but one that does an effective job of both showcasing the material and connecting the songs in a thematic way.

| Oct 24, 2019

As a substitution for the tour that never was, this concert film within a documentary does a brilliant job of bringing "Western Stars" to life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 23, 2019

It's lovely film to look at, Springsteen confronting his past and demons in the prettiest, gently tuneful barn-and-big-sky way imaginable.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 23, 2019

It's basically a concert flick, with some extras. And those extras are not the best things in it.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 23, 2019

Western Stars is not only a concert film presenting 13 Springsteen bangers, plus one great cover. Showcasing his charisma, wit, thoughtfulness and vulnerability, it emerges as a telling portrait of one of music's modern greats.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 21, 2019

It is a beautiful film, undercut only by the conspicuous nature of Springsteen's coal-black hair (he's 70 years old, for god sake!) and his apparent penchant for bright orange make-up.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 15, 2019

It's a ruminative, almost elegiac look at Springsteen's life and career, filled with moments of uncommon beauty that makes it of a piece with this latest, most introspective phase of his career.

| Sep 13, 2019

Both an intimate exploration of Springsteen's latest album of the same name and a deeper dive into his most pervasive compulsions.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 13, 2019

The result, at once intimate and sweeping, should please both Springsteen completists and more recent fans when Western Stars rides into theaters October 25 - ideally those with sound systems worthy of the lush orchestral arrangements.

| Sep 13, 2019