Best of Enemies 2015

Kyle Smith, New York Post: "Best of Enemies" illustrates how even literary swashbucklers can be reduced to schoolboy behavior. Read more

Stephen Garrett, New York Observer: [A] delightful account of the infamous televised debates between liberal firebrand Gore Vidal and conservative gadfly William F. Buckley, Jr., during the 1968 Republican and Democratic Conventions. Read more

Joe Leydon, Variety: The on-camera clashes between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal are vividly and entertainingly recounted in this fascinating documentary. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: The fascination and tragedy of Best Of Enemies is that these two great minds squandered what might've been their best chance to show the broadcast media how to have a vigorous, entertaining, useful argument about where the country was headed. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: There is something about the siren call of the TV camera that can turn even big thinkers into brawlers. It was true then and it's true now, and "Best of Enemies" serves as a thoroughly enjoyable reminder. Read more

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: Like its two subjects, "Best of Enemies" is lively and smart. Unlike them, it's even-handed. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: New documentary explores the public intellectuals' televised spats. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The film positions those debates as a harbinger of the ideological sword-crossing that has become a staple of TV news. Except what we have now, as opposed to the Vidal-Buckley confrontations, is a lot more yammery than eloquent. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Did anyone win? Most say Vidal, since Buckley descended to physical threats. But really, has anyone won in any of this endless bickering? Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: This deliciously feisty doc contextualizes their verbal brawls and the odd love-hate (mostly hate) rivalry between two men who seemed able to regard their own sense of heroism only through the other's villainy. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: For American viewers of an intellectual/historical persuasion, there could scarcely be any documentary more enticing, scintillating and downright fascinating than Best of Enemies. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Fleet, brutally funny and ultimately mournful for the lost art of informed public intellectuals brandishing wounding insights, the film is a fizzy bath of expertly organized archival footage and commentary ... Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Vidal vs. Buckley-or, as I prefer to think of it, Alien vs. Predator-has not improved with age. Which combatant you cleave to is beside the point, since both of them teeter on the brink of the insufferable. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: "Best of Enemies" is an undisciplined but still interesting look at those two men, and their extraordinary feud. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Best of Enemies bowls along smartly, with clips from the tapes spiced with intelligently snarky asides from friends and adversaries of the two men, and spliced with archival footage of the tumultuous times they addressed. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The bruises inflicted that summer are now visible daily on so many channels, but they're often inflicted by combatants who are far less mighty. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The arguments about sex, war, race and culture have hardly quieted since 1968. Buckley and Vidal may rest in peace, but the rest of us have stayed plastered. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Best of Enemies offers a bracing view of a pivotal time in our recent history, as Vietnam and race riots scarred a nation's soul, and as the Establishment and the Counter Culture exchanged epithets and blows. Read more

Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader: What followed [in the debates] was not so much a clash of well-articulated ideas as a clash of highly articulate persons who regarded ideas as ammunition. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: For better or for worse, we'll never again see television quite like that documented in the compelling "Best of Enemies" ... Read more

Jim Brunzell III, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Unfolding over the course of a month, these debates were a game-changing event in American politics and unscripted television, which left both men continuing to trade barbs for decades. Read more

John Semley, Globe and Mail: Best of Enemies plays not only as a lively document of an engaging - and insanely entertaining - intellectual rivalry, but as a lament for the very idea of the public intellectual in contemporary life. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The idea may not seem so radical, in this day and age of reality TV excess and internet outrage: giving a national broadcast forum to two highly opinionated intellectuals to argue about politics. Read more

Inkoo Kang, TheWrap: A timely but unsatisfying exploration of a series of exchanges between conservative Buckley and liberal Vidal makes its case too little and too late. Read more

Steve Pond, TheWrap: The two men made serious policy discussions wickedly entertaining and decidedly personal, and Neville and Gordon knew that they had a gold mine in the debate footage that is the centerpiece of their movie. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: A fascinating, supremely well-judged and unexpectedly touching documentary. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: It's fascinating. It's horrible. It's fascinatingly horrible. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: Best of Enemies leaves you with an overwhelming sense of despair. It's not just a great documentary, it's a vital one. Read more

Mark Jenkins, Washington Post: It's great television, but it has been available on YouTube for some time now. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A must-view film for our media-besotted age ... Read more