San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

Three Identical Strangers tells a remarkable story. In fact, it tells several. It’s already extraordinary 20 minutes in, and then it goes to unexpected and yet more amazing places, like a narrative feature by a master storyteller.

Entertainment Weekly by Chris Nashawaty

The best documentaries reveal the ways in which truth can be stranger (and wilder and weirder) than fiction. And director Tim Wardle’s stunning and tragic Sundance sensation, Three Identical Strangers, is stranger (and wilder and weirder) than most.

Original-Cin by Liam Lacey

In both its light and dark phases, Three Identical Strangers comes across as almost too calculatedly entertaining, as Wardle carefully deals out the critical information, with the odd red herring, for maximum effect. In its defense, the film is consistently compassionate and fair-minded. Ultimately, the film confirms its investigative legitimacy by refusing to offer easy answers.

TheWrap by Dan Callahan

Wardle spent five years making Three Identical Strangers after several other filmmakers had given up on this subject because they were always hitting a dead end, and so he deserves credit for journalistic doggedness and also for making a documentary that plays like a nerve-jangling thriller.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

The director, Tim Wardle, has shaped the film as a detective story in which the more pieces of the puzzle are filled in, the more disgusted and infuriated we become.

Austin Chronicle by Steve Davis

Three Identical Strangers may not achieve the kind of redemptive catharsis we wish for here, but it achieves something almost as miraculous, making an otherwise unbelievable story seem believably real.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

There have been better documentaries this year, but none of them are the roller-coaster ride that Three Identical Strangers turns out to be.

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

One of the more entertaining yet profoundly disturbing documentaries of this or any year.

Rolling Stone by David Fear

It's a compelling, twist-filled tale, one told with a highly developed sense of empathy, a few aesthetic missteps (perhaps it's time to issue a permanent moratorium on montages set to "Walkin' on Sunshine"? Actually, scratch the perhaps there) and a knack for turning the triplets' experience into something bigger than just stranger-than-fiction tabloid fodder.

The Seattle Times by Brent McKnight

What begins as a light and fluffy, too-weird-to-be-fiction story goes unimaginably deeper, stranger, darker.

The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo

So bizarre is this story that its most mundane aspects take on a certain profundity. Even when Three Identical Strangers falters, it fascinates, and that’s a claim very few documentaries can make.

Screen Daily by Fionnuala Halligan

Where some see coincidence, Wardle finds a true-life conspiracy, and pursues it all the way to conclusion after gripping conclusion.

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

Mr. Wardle relates that story smoothly and persuasively, but his telling sometimes provokes more questions than it answers.

Variety by Peter Debruge

A gripping, stranger-than-fiction account of a real-world medical conspiracy, the film begins as a human-interest story and builds to an impressive work of investigative journalism into how and why they were placed with the families who raised them.

Screen International by Fionnuala Halligan

Where some see coincidence, Wardle finds a true-life conspiracy, and pursues it all the way to conclusion after gripping conclusion.

The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney

This is a strange, ultimately quite distressing story touched by tragedy, told by Wardle with great skill and compassion in a brisk, consistently absorbing package.

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

Three Identical Strangers does a solid job laying out a story that’s both remarkable and repulsive in equal measures.

The New Yorker by Anthony Lane

Prepare to be surprised by joy, at the outset, and to wind up baffled and sad. Not that the saga is complete; many of the relevant files, at Yale, will not be unsealed until 2066. Less than fifty years to go. I can’t wait.

Consequence by Blake Goble

Wardle allows the details to roll out with impact, and even some insight. Curiosity for the grand genetic schemes is a great sell, but the human element, the lament for lost time, truth, and family? That sticks at the end.

Consequence of Sound by Blake Goble

Wardle allows the details to roll out with impact, and even some insight. Curiosity for the grand genetic schemes is a great sell, but the human element, the lament for lost time, truth, and family? That sticks at the end.

The Film Stage by Daniel Schindel

Director Tim Wardle lays a lot on the strength of the events he’s covering, and they are indeed compelling enough on their own to hold your interest. The flipside of this is that the film has little power outside of a first viewing.