We Were Here 2011

John Hartl, Seattle Times: There's something profoundly inspirational about this portrait of a community coming together to battle prejudice and disease. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: An extraordinarily moving, beautifully edited documentary... Read more

David Fear, Time Out: We Were Here utilizes an invaluable archive of period pictures and news footage to trace how the Castro went from Edenic neighborhood to an epidemic frontline. Read more

Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter: Deeply affecting doc revisits the AIDS epidemic without any grandstanding. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: This clear-eyed and soulful documentary brings us inside the contagion in a way that is so intimate, so personal, you feel like you're hearing about these catastrophic events for the first time. Read more

Melissa Anderson, L.A. Weekly: A simple, powerful act of bearing witness, We Were Here is a sober reminder of the not-too-distant past, when gays were focused not on honeymoon plans but on keeping people alive. Read more

Bruce Diones, New Yorker: Its vivid, no-nonsense style (in which interviews, period photographs, and news footage merge seamlessly) makes the past present. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: There is no turning away from the screen. Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: The most gripping war movie you'll see this year, We Were Here tells first-hand the story of how AIDS attacked San Francisco, killing more than 15,000. Whole peer groups were happy, healthy, and then dead in months. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Director David Weissman does everything you're generally not supposed to do in a documentary - we get talking heads, old news footage, and still photographs, and that's about it - but We Were Here is never less than riveting. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: [A] sober, devastating film about how we all - and some more than others - have to deal with the most unexpected horrors in our lives. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: It is both a testament to the fallen and a series of life lessons from five brave survivors, lessons about finding the best in ourselves in the worst of times. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: We Were Here documents the epidemic through a powerful combination of first-hand testimony, archival photography and TV news footage. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: A simple, powerful act of bearing witness, We Were Here is a sober reminder of the not-too-distant past, when gays were focused not on honeymoon plans but on keeping people alive. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "We Were Here" pays eloquent homage to men and women who deserve to be celebrated and remembered as heroes. Read more