Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 96% of 53 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.80/10.The website's consensus reads: "Director Johan Grimonprez's sprawling documentary moves to a furious beat, laying out its thesis with an energy that's as enthralling as it is thought-provoking." [10] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 91 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [11]
Shortly after the film's premiere at Sundance, it was championed by critic Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times , who wrote "I can't stop thinking about the remarkable 'Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,' a sprawling film that's a well-researched essay about the 1960 regime change in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the part the United States, particularly the C.I.A., played." [12] She later described the film as "marvelous". [13] Wilkinson ranked the film 4th in her list of the Top 10 Best Films of 2024, writing that it was "both a multimedia dissertation and a dizzying accomplishment." [14]
The critic Murtada Elfadl published on Variety : "an invigorating piece of documentary filmmaking [...] It’s dense yet nuanced, managing to capture so many disparate threads that combined to result in Lumumba’s murder." [15]
Marye E. Gates wrote on RogerEbert.com : "A searing video-essay… Watching the doc evokes the same intellectual and visceral feeling one gets from reading a dense work of nonfiction…For many it will be an eye-opener." [16]
David Opie for IndieWire: "A vibrant film essay that marries jazz and politics… Grimonprez’s doc has an impressionistic flair that asks audiences to actively participate in piecing everything together... It’s a stirring rally that’s uniquely cinematic in the way so many elements come together so precisely and yet still feels so organic as well." [17]
Lovia Gyarkye for The Hollywood Reporter : "Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat plays like a syncopated thriller." [18]
The film has been picked as one of the "10 Best Movies From the 2024 Sundance Film Festival" [19] by Rolling Stone . It has also been shown at MoMA's Director's Fortnight [20] and at the 2024 edition of Cinéma du Réel. [21]
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat was nominated for the Gotham Awards, the Critics Choice Doc Awards, Cinema Eye Honors, European Film Awards, IDA Doc Awards, and the Film Independent Spirit Awards in the Best Documentary category. [22] [23]
Screen Daily ranked Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat as the best film of 2024. [24] It was also ranked 2nd in the film category of the Best of 2024 list from Artforum . [25]
The film was included in a New York Times list of ideal nominees for the 97th Academy Awards. [26]
