The Hollywood Reporter by Sheri Linden

What sets it soaring is the discerning guide at its helm, one whose curatorial exultation and rigor are also calming, reassuring — a welcome voice in cacophonous times.

TheWrap by Steve Pond

"The Story of Film" is long (though not by Cousins’ standards), it’s infuriating at times (entirely by design) and it overstates its case with defiant glee (again, it meant to do that), but you can’t love movies and not love a good chunk of what Cousins puts on the screen.

Empire by Sophie Monks Kaufman

Inevitably, there is a tacked-on quality here, yet Cousins’ flair for providing visual pleasure means that, like that first champagne cocktail of the night, The Next Generation bubbles with sparkling uplift.

The Irish Times by Donald Clarke

It would be wrong to describe A New Generation as a mere coda to The Story of Film. Clocking in at a weighty 160 minutes, the documentary travels to every corner of cinemaspace.

Variety by Peter Debruge

There’s room for infinite points of view behind the camera, as well as among those who do the watching. Offering the tools for unpacking potentially challenging movies, Cousins teaches people how to be better spectators — not by telling them the right way to watch, but by encouraging them to engage more deeply with what they see.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

What is invigorating about The Story of Film is that each new clip, each new comment, is an exercise in back to basics, an exercise in looking, and looking again and looking harder – something that’s even more difficult when it feels like we’re drowning in content.

Film Threat by Josiah Teal

A lack of flash or energy does nothing to detract from the sheer depth of film exploration present in The Story of Film: A New Generation.

Slant Magazine by Chris Barsanti

The films collected in A New Generation speak for themselves even when they don’t necessarily slot neatly into Mark Cousins’s curlicue thinking.

Boston Globe by Mark Feeney

Watching “Story,” one realizes that so much of what most of us most love about the movies isn’t the medium, per se, but its appurtenances: stardom and glamour and the pull of narrative. What Cousins loves is the medium. We love the effects. He loves the cause.

The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg

Cousins’s assessments offer plenty to argue with, but it’s possible to enjoy “A New Generation” without agreeing that “Booksmart” “extends the world of film comedy,” as he claims, or that a shot in “It Follows” merits comparison to the camerawork in Michael Snow’s landmark experimental film “La Région Centrale.”

Screen Daily by Allan Hunter

A New Generation offers no earthshattering conclusions. There is no pretense of covering everything, just a chance to swim in Cousins erudite passion for film and answer his call to keep the faith.

The Playlist by Warren Cantrell

Cousins is insightful, thorough in his technical comparisons, and well-read in the library of cinema, yet never quite connects his work to a larger tapestry that extends the form.