The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Critics Consensus

Informative and enraging in equal measure, The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz uses its subject's tragic tale to deliver an impassioned call to action.

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The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz Photos

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Movie Info

The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties. (c) FilmBuff Participant

Rating:

R
Genre:

Documentary, Special Interest
Directed By:

Brian Knappenberger
Written By:

Brian Knappenberger, Lincoln Else
In Theaters:

Jun 27, 2014 limited
On Disc/Streaming:

Jan 20, 2015
Box Office:

$48,911
Runtime:

105 minutes
Studio:

FilmBuff and Participant

Cast

Aaron Swartz

Cindy Cohn

Gabriella Coleman

Cory Doctorow

Peter Eckersley

Brewster Kahle

Orin Kerr

Lawrence Lessig

Rep. Zoe Lofgren

Carl Malamud

Quinn Norton

Tim O'Reilly

Elliot Peters

Alec Resnick

Doc Searls

Philip David Segal

Micah Sifry

Stephen Shultze

Christopher Soghoian

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman

Matt Stoller

Ben Swartz

Noah Swartz

Susan Swartz

Ben Wikler

Ronald Wyden

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Critic Reviews for The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

All Critics (59) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (55) | Rotten (4)

Talking (egg)heads reiterate outrage over the Obama Justice Department's witch hunt against him, but Swartz's ex-girlfriend adds heart when she tearfully recalls first seeing the ''end date'' on his Wikipedia page.

Dec 3, 2014 | Rating: B | Full Review…

Joe McGovern
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic
The film builds up a portrait of a brilliant, driven, complex young man who's likely to be an iconic figure in the future, a sort of digital-age Che Guevara.

Aug 28, 2014 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Leslie Felperin
Guardian
Top Critic
The sad untimely death of precocious internet maven Aaron Schwartz is the focus of this chilling doc.

Aug 28, 2014 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

D'Arcy Doran
Little White Lies
Top Critic
Fascinating, maddening, and ultimately very sad.

Jul 10, 2014 | Rating: 3/4

Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times
Top Critic
The film not only canonizes its hero - who committed suicide amid a nasty federal indictment against him - but also brushes aside any big-picture concerns about national security and Internet piracy.

Jul 9, 2014 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

David Lewis
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic
Aaron Swartz's story should make you furious.

Jun 28, 2014 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Brian Tallerico
RogerEbert.com
Top Critic
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz simmers with sadness, cynicism and starkness yet never once turns its back on the celebrated digital-aged declaration in a chosen soul out to right the wrong and mince politics with printout sheets.

Nov 7, 2018 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Frank Ochieng
Popoptiq
An insightful look into one individual's struggle with government information policy that has much wider implications.

Oct 14, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Benjamin Gummery
Battle Royale With Cheese
A brilliant and idealistic soul sacrificed at the altar of Barack Obama's war on intellectual and political transparency.

Jan 22, 2015 | Full Review…

Louis Proyect
rec.arts.movies.reviews
Passionately tells a tragic tale of injustice.

Nov 26, 2014 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…

Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
I was hesitant about seeing this movie. I thought it was just another film glamorizing suicidal people. It turns out to be more of a celebration of the short, but incredibly productive life of Aron Swartz and the things he stood for.

Nov 12, 2014 | Rating: B | Full Review…

Robert Roten
Laramie Movie Scope
Knappenberger argues that the case against Swartz was overzealously pursued in order to make an example of him and on the evidence presented here it's hard to disagree.

Aug 31, 2014 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Mark Kermode
Observer (UK)

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Audience Reviews for The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Jan 30, 2015

An inspiring, enraging and extremely sad documentary about this admirable young man whose only crime in this anti-democratic society was to seek knowledge and try to make it accessible to everyone - and his stupid death shows that a lot must be changed/fought for in this corrupted world.

Carlos M Super Reviewer
Aug 30, 2014

When old world and new world collide, this heart breaking story of an amazing individual who did so much to progress open democracy and freedom of information. An old world wanted to make an example of him to deter others, it cost him his life. I hope this film inspires many others to take up Aaron's torch and build the world we want, not inherit what is dictated to us. Put it on the national curriculum for citizenship.

Jon H Super Reviewer
Jul 20, 2014

Aaron Swartz stood for a free and democratic Internet. He was guilty of downloading 5 million scholarly texts from the JSTOR database. However since this material wasn't of a sensitive nature, nor did he plan to financially gain from the acquisition, the infraction seems negligible at best. Unfortunately none of the antagonists agreed to appear on camera. If there's a villain here it's the U.S. attorney's office and specially the chief prosecutor in the case, Stephen Heymann. He doesn't fare too well at all. His absence doesn't help him, but it's hard to say whether it would have served him if he had showed up to defend his questionable motives. Even hallowed university MIT comes under fire for its failure to speak up in Aaron's defense despite their supposed commitment to open access. The end result is a one-sided but emotionally compelling view. It will make you angry but it will also make you profoundly sad. You will mourn this young man who, in the aftermath of the events detailed here, ultimately took his own life. fastfilmreviews.com

Mark H Super Reviewer
Jun 30, 2014

"The Internet's Own Boy" is an insightful and informative documentary about Aaron Swartz who facing the possibility of 35 years in jail for downloading intellectual journals at MIT committed suicide at the age of 26. The documentary does a good job of filling in the blanks in Aaron's life, starting with being a computer prodigy in suburban Chicago before dropping out of Stanford University and co-founding Reddit. Along the way, he idolized Tim Berners-Lee who DID invent the internet.(And where is his documentary, by the way?) That led to Aaron not just creating personal wealth, but in taking an interest in the public sphere, especially as it relates to the freedom of information. What "The Internet's Own Boy" does not do especially well is with one exception give the prosecutor's side of events, with the defense presenting almost all of the evidence.(Admittedly, there were a few people who decided not to participate.) In any case, we get a very clear view of what it is like to be prosecuted by federal authorities and investigated by the FBI, for which many people who do not have Aaron's resources have to go through something similar on a daily basis, as is also pointed out here.

Walter M Super Reviewer