Waiting For Superman (2010)

"...compelling...  John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter
"...powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing...  Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"...A powerful and alarming documentary...  Stephen Holden, New York Times

Editor's Note Documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim explores the tragic ways in which the American public education system is failing our nation's children, and explores the roles that charter schools and education reformers could play in offering hope for the future. We see the statistics every day -- students dropping out, science and math scores falling, and schools closing due to lack of funding. What we don't see are the names and faces of the children whose entire futures are at stake due to our own inability to enact change. There was a time when the American public education system was a model admired by the entire world. Today other countries are surpassing us in every respect, and the slogan "No Child Left Behind" has become a cynical punch line. Bianca, Emily, Anthony, Daisy, and Francisco are five students who deserve better. By investigating how the current system is actually obstructing their education instead of bolstering it, Guggenheim opens the door to considering possible options for transformation and improvement.

	Davis Guggenheim - Screenwriter
	Erich Roland - Director of Photography
	Robert Richman - Director of Photography
	Christophe Beck - Composer
	Billy Kimball - Screenwriter
	John Legend - Song Composer
	Sean Donnelly - Animation
	Mike Feinberg - Host
	Geoffrey Canada - Host
	Michelle Rhee - Host
	Bill Strickland - Host
	Randi Weingarten - Host
	Anthony - Host
	Bianca - Host
	Daisy - Host
	Emily - Host
	Francisco - Host
	David Levin - Host
	Eric Hanushek - Host
	Davis Guggenheim - Director

Wall Street Journal
"[This is] a fateful moment when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity. WAITING FOR SUPERMAN makes an invaluable addition to the debate." 09/23/2010

A.V. Club
"Guggenheim examines the root causes of this public-school meltdown and offers suggestions for breaking the gridlock afflicting our educational system..." 09/23/2010

Box Office
4 stars out of 5 -- "[Guggenheim] tackles large-scale sociopolitical subjects and still manages to present a story in an intimate and humanistic way." 09/24/2010

Los Angeles Times
"Much of the film is told compellingly and heartbreakingly through the wide-eyed innocence of five children."

USA Today
4 stars out of 4 -- "[A] masterful picture, which vaults itself among the year's best films." 09/24/2010

New York Times
"[A] powerful and alarming documentary about America's failing public school system..." 09/24/2010

Movieline
"It's a giant issue, and Guggenheim has taken a running, open-armed jump right into the thick of it." 09/23/2010

Chicago Sun-Times
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "[Guggenheim] contends the American educational system is failing....He dramatizes this failure in a painfully direct way, says what is wrong, says what is right." 09/29/2010

Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "[A]n electrifying call to action....This movie isn't just a necessity -- it might change your future." 09/24/2010

Washington Post
"WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim's scathing, moving critique of American public education, makes you actually want to do something after you dry your eyes." 10/01/2010

Sight and Sound
"[Guggenheim] capably presents a story of failing schools and striving students that's engaging and well paced..." 01/01/2011

Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "[Guggenheim] shows a knack for presenting otherwise dry facts and figures in both a simple and dramatic way, combining them with heart-rending human stories." 12/03/2010

Variety 10 of 10
Exhilarating, heartbreaking and righteous, "Waiting for Superman" is also a kind of high-minded thriller: Can the American education system be cured? Can it be made globally competitive? Can it, at least, be made educational?...What Guggenheim brings to his documentaries (which include "An Inconvenient Truth" and "It Might Get Loud") are qualities generally not associated (wrongly) with nonfiction filmmaking: an agile, cinematic eye, a sense of rhythm and fluidity, and an awareness that unpalatable information has to be delivered with a side order of humor, not stentorian stuffiness....it's a movie full of spirit and hope. - John Anderson

Rolling Stone 9 of 10
It's war! and the enemy trying to bring down public education in America is within. That's the premise of Waiting for "Superman," an electrifying call to action from Davis Guggenheim, whose An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar.Guggenheim writes his devastating story on the faces of children in New York, L.A. and D.C. whose lives are being ambushed by bureaucracies. This movie isn't just a necessity (listen up, do-nothing politicians) - it might change your future. - Peter Travers