How to Survive a Plague Reviews

An indispensable and moving piece of filmmaking.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

[A] glorious ode to the supposition that a small group of committed people can change the world...

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As this stirring, scrupulous doc reveals, the members of ACT UP fused the fervor of revolutionaries, the tenacity of trial lawyers, and the rage of the dispossessed to change the very shape of the epidemic.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

Plague offers an instructive lesson for Occupy-era rabble-rousers: Only when coupled with a knowledge base will your sound and fury signify anything.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

From a terrible epidemic comes a beautiful documentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

The film is a tribute to political activism and the power of people to change the world.

Full Review | Original Score: A

One of the most powerful, fascinating and saddest documentaries of the last several years.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

What making a difference is really all about!

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

A cinematically sophisticated documentary that actually finds a way to be an intelligent and admirable work of art in addition to its more overt sociological implications.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10

A brilliant blueprint on how to spark a revolution. The activists who were highlighted in this film are American heroes to us all - gay, straight, black, white, male or female.

Full Review | Original Score: A

Compelling, important and inspiring documentary about the fight against AIDS.

Full Review | Original Score: B

Beautifully inspiring and, obviously, also a great cautionary tale.

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A raw history, often cluttered and sometimes repetitive but, when strategies fail along with immune systems, deeply affecting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Presents a valuable template for how grassroots activism can temper societal prejudice and challenge governmental indifference in the face of a mysterious and remorseless killer.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

A riveting look at LGBT protesters during the AIDS crisis - and an object lesson that if the revolution is going to be televised, it's good to have the revolutionaries holding the cameras.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

This is a moving documentary, as hopeful as it is tragic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A serious, moving and sometimes astonishingly well-organized documentary about the history of AIDS activism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

[A] powerful, messy and tremendously moving documentary ...

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

The title doesn't necessarily convey this, but "How to Survive a Plague" is an inspiring and hopeful documentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

"How to Survive a Plague" captures a saddening, maddening era that seems like far too many lifetimes ago.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4