Critic Reviews

• Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

  Sputnik Mania plays, discreetly, like a negative love story between superpowers. Sure they moved on to other enemies, but they still haven't gotten over each other.

• David Fear, Time Out New York

  Hoffman manages to keep the tone light -- even H-bomb paranoia gets a breezy treatment -- though most of his filmmaking choices range from banal to boneheaded.

• Lou Lumenick, New York Post

  For those too young to remember, Sputnik Mania documents the fear and anxiety that gripped the United States half a century ago when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in October 1957.

• Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

  The archival footage here is great, and the cosmos-conquering craziness will satisfy space-race nuts. But the small budget is obvious, so director David Hoffman couldn't go from the Earth to the moon on every detail.

• Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times

  David Hoffman's documentary Sputnik Mania is an account of that Soviet satellite's effect on the American consciousness.

• Richard James Havis, Hollywood Reporter

  Clips from old television broadcasts make this space documentary entertaining.

• Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve

  The sharply edited film, which includes (happily) just a few talking heads but mostly exciting archival celluloid and campy stock is a love letter to Ike Eisenhower.

• Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune

  Director David Hoffman marshals his information into an absorbing story, adroitly narrated by Liev Schreiber, that captures the fears and the hopes of the dawn of the Space Age.

• Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City

  The enlightening Sputnik Mania looks at the late '50s, a time that was dominated by Cold War hysteria.

• MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher

  [A] smart, wry look at the American enthusiasm for and then paranoia over the first manmade satellite to orbit Earth... [R]ings with a truth that still holds...

• Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics

  The reigning champion in the archival footage department features great Soviet footage of those days that (hopefully) will never be seen again---the days of the US-Soviet space race.

• Frank Lovece, Film Journal International

  Clear, comprehensible, polished and articulate, but lacking the gut-punch to raise this portrait of a world-changing event from the level of a museum piece.

• Matthew Nestel, Boxoffice Magazine

  something unlike anything out there.

• Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide

  Avoids reveling in Cold War kitsch in favor of a serious look one of the most important -- and frightening -- moments in human history.

• Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

  reminds us that there was a time in the past when world leaders had morality and values

• Raphaela Weissman, New York Press

  Sputnik Mania is not riveting; but it is, first and last, informative.

• Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

  So obsessed with delivering a story about "mania" through overcooked narrative and aesthetic means that one ultimately feels as manipulated as enlightened.

• Donald J. Levit, ReelTalk Movie Reviews

  Refreshingly, 'Sputnik Mania' stands back and allows its tale to be told in memorable actuality footage backed with unobtrusive period music.

• Bill Gibron, PopMatters

  ...when it plays to our sense of selective memory and fills in the blanks on issues long forgotten, Sputnik Mania is masterful.

• Steve Rhodes, Internet Reviews

  Filled with funny moments ... it perfectly and even-handedly captures the spirit of the time.

Read all 20 critic reviews