Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Surviving Progress is a bright, entertaining (!), coherent argument in favor of these principles I have simplified so briefly. It's self-evident and tells the truth.

New Orleans Times-Picayune by Mike Scott

With beautiful, artful images serving to break up the monotony of the film's wealth of talking heads, Surviving Progress is at times as visually striking as it is persuasive.

Slant Magazine

By turning the idea of progress on its head, the nimble Surviving Progress exquisitely presents to us the possibility that humankind's achievements may cause its downfall.

Slant Magazine by Kalvin Henely

By turning the idea of progress on its head, the nimble Surviving Progress exquisitely presents to us the possibility that humankind's achievements may cause its downfall.

Variety by Dennis Harvey

Progress does a remarkable job weaving together these and many other big ideas in a crisp, coherent, easy-to-take fashion that somehow never becomes an informational overload.

Village Voice by Ernest Hardy

The film trots out a who's who of great thinkers - Jane Goodall, Stephen Hawking, Margaret Atwood, assorted scientists and historians - who are riveting as they walk us through the question of whether we will or can survive progress. The anticapitalism prognosis is grim, and the hope offered is slim indeed.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Stephen Cole

Though often fascinating and beautiful to look at, Surviving Progress falls into the adapting-a-book-into-a-movie trap. Trying to do too much too fast.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Joe Williams

Surviving Progress reiterates arguments made in movies such as "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Inside Job," it marshals minds such as Jane Goodall and Stephen Hawking, and it utilizes artful imagery reminiscent of films such as "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Up the Yangtze."

New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman

The cumulative power of so many great minds envisioning our potential self-destruction is undeniable. You may start planning your move off the grid before the movie even ends.

NPR by Mark Jenkins

After nearly 90 minutes of human folly, though, Surviving Progress can't very well conclude with a tribute to mankind. So, to end on a hopeful note, the movie turns to a chimp.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

The name of this documentary is Surviving Progress, but that's only because "The Sky Is Falling and We're All Gonna Die" wouldn't fit on a marquee.

The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck

As with many films of its ilk, Surviving Progress takes on more than it can comfortably handle, veering haphazardly from subject to subject.

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

Like too many short documentaries, it can't do justice to its complex topic or finally to those of us watching. Because, while Surviving Progress puts forth a lot of general advice (stop the deforestation of the Amazon), it offers little in terms of real, practical, graspable solutions. People need hope; moviegoers do too.

Time Out

Like the myriad dangers threatening the earth, the film is simply too unwieldy, a sprawling mass of ideas that are dutifully checked off and then given only superficial explanations in lieu of insightful explorations.