Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Amy is alternately thrilling and devastating, throwing you back and forth until the devastation takes over and you spend the last hour watching the most supernaturally gifted vocalist of her generation chase and find oblivion.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"Amy" doesn't depart from the standard behind-the-music template, but it does deepen the format immeasurably, through the intimacy of its archival materials and the focus of its approach.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
In Kapadia's assured and careful hands, the film becomes less a portrait of a tragic artist, whose downward spiral was exacerbated by opportunistic family members and colleagues, than a discomfiting mirror held up to her audience.

Name : Jordan Levin / Alias : Miami Herald
You don't need to be a fan of British singer Amy Winehouse to be moved by the documentary Amy, a devastating examination of the deadly effect that celebrity culture, media and drugs can have on artists.

Name : Jake Coyle / Alias : Associated Press
Amy is a clear-eyed, deeply empathetic view of Winehouse, whose huge talent and sudden fame made too many forget she was still just a vulnerable young woman in serious need of help.

Name : Ella Taylor / Alias : NPR
"All I'm good for is making tunes," she tells one interviewer. "So leave me alone to do that." Her time ran out far too early, but the luck is all ours - we still have the voice.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
Like all theories, the doc's "truth vs. phoniness" narrative has a few blind spots.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
"Amy" makes you wonder about a lot of things, one being the oldest cliche in show business - the one about the high price of notoriety, whether you have the money to cover the bill or not.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Watching Amy is a torturous but endlessly hypnotic experience.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
It's clear the smart, passionate singer knew her own mind - and the consequences of what she was doing to her body. But her tragic end, and the highly publicized chaos leading up to it, shows self-awareness wasn't enough.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It's Amy's words, her music, her voicemails, her home videos, her friends, her family, her tormentors, and her timeless incandescence. Look, listen and weep.

Name : Dave Calhoun / Alias : Time Out
Anyone with a beating heart will be forgiven for allowing it to break during this unflinching and thoughtful account of the life and death of the soul singer.

Name : Paul de Barros / Alias : Seattle Times
"Amy," Asif Kapadia's documentary about the short, tragic life of British retro soul singer Amy Winehouse, is a heartbreaker.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The film is remarkable not just for the immense talent there to see in Winehouse's performances, but the fact that there is so much to see.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : ChristyLemire.com
A mesmerizing yet devastating look at a singular talent.

Name : Preston Jones / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The ugly unraveling of Winehouse's life infuriates and saddens anew, as Kapadia's poignant documentary reminds viewers of what was and what might have been, but was ultimately, tragically never to be.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Plenty of folks praise Winehouse in "Amy." But no one was there to save her. Perhaps it wasn't possible. But perhaps it was.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
One thing is for certain: It will be much harder to hear that handful of powerful, lush, carnal songs on Back to Black without the wallop of melancholy.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
A powerful, and powerfully sad, experience.

Name : Walter V. Addiego / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Amy" is a film about the waste of a great talent, and you dread the inevitable ending.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Kapadia's illuminating, compassionate and tragic doc goes way up and way, way down with the gone-too-soon Amy Winehouse.

Name : Kyle Ryan / Alias : AV Club
Winehouse was a complicated artist who deserved a nuanced, honest look at her life. In lesser hands, Amy could be a feature-length E! True Hollywood Story, but Kapadia treats his subject with respect and heart.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
This lengthy but immersive portrait will hit hard with viewers who regard Winehouse among the great lost voices not just of a generation, but of an entire musical genre.

Name : Jim Farber / Alias : New York Daily News
The result may be depressing, but the performance footage balances it with rousing evidence of Winehouse's eternal talent.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
[An] accomplished, quietly devastating documentary .

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
There are a couple of scenes in Asif Kapadia's new Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy, that make the fame-industrial complex seem rock-bottom awful.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A loving but honest portrayal of a doomed talent.

Name : Kerry Lengel / Alias : Arizona Republic
It's hard to watch. And even harder to look away.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
Kapadia and King provide some worthy insights about the damaging effects of celebrity on psychologically fragile individuals. And the music is fantastic.

Name : Steve Pond / Alias : TheWrap
Heartbreaking and wrenching, if not always satisfying.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
Even if the last third of Amy is painful to watch, Kapadia takes care not to lose sight of the human being behind the mythology.

Name : Miriam Di Nunzio / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
The film is often uncomfortable to watch, prompting that little voice inside each of us to scream out "Somebody help her!"

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
Mr. Kapadia isn't simply revisiting Ms. Winehouse's life and death, but also - by pulling you in close to her, first pleasantly and then unpleasantly - telling the story of contemporary celebrity and, crucially, fandom's cost.

Name : Chloe Schama / Alias : The New Republic
[An] unpredictably graceful film (given its sometimes ugly material).

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
One of Mr. Kapadia's most inspired strokes in this valuable documentary is to put her lyrics on screen as she sings them, so we can see for ourselves the essential elements of her songs as they reflected, and intertwined with, her tumultuous life.

Name : Stephen Dalton / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Amy is an emotionally stirring and technically polished tribute, its sprawling mass of diverse source material elegantly cleaned up, color-corrected and shaped into a satisfying narrative.