91
This is a documentary that reminds you of the resiliency of the human spirit. The resourcefulness that can take place when you have nowhere else to run.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
What Winter on Fire lacks in journalistic detachment it more than makes up for in fidelity to the feelings and motives of the participants. It’s more than just a portrait of terror, anger, desperation and resolve; it communicates those emotions directly, into the bloodstream and nervous system of the audience.
90
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
Winter on Fire's thrilling rebellion is neither the beginning nor the end, but it is at least a truly heartening middle.
70
Screen International by Dan Fainaru
More like the testimony of an enthusiastic, fully committed supporter watching, in close-up, a populatoon reclaiming its rights, Afineevsky’s film accepts as a basic premise that Yanukevych is the villain. Anyone who differs should look elsewhere.
91
With up-close footage of police beatings and hordes of angry protestors calling for the country's president to resign, Winter on Fire features the intensity of an action movie and the fury of a clear-eyed polemic.
75
RogerEbert.com by Godfrey Cheshire
Though the film is limited by a point of view that’s too polemically reductive, the idealistic, difficult, sometimes lethal struggles it covers are undeniably revelatory and moving.
60
Getting swept up in the immediate excitement is entirely understandable, but ignoring the less savory elements, such as ultra-nationalist rhetoric, is problematic at best.
80
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Winter on Fire never takes its eye off the story's underlying and very dramatic theme, and that would be nothing less than revolution.
75
This is activist filmmaking that manages to be both angry and elegiac in its recounting of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Farber
Although the film might have benefited from a deeper investigation of the background to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the vivid scenes of protest in the capital city of Kiev supply undeniable power.