Metacritic reviews

It lulls the audience into thinking it’s only providing historical context. Yet by the end, it reveals the myths, the distortions and the made-up fallacies that have been presented as truth for centuries. And that is the most radical thing it could have done.

The film’s particular innovation is to privilege Black women’s perspectives on the history of American racism, and with the exception of Kendi himself, every expert commentator here is a Black woman.

Stamped is an inspection of America’s social hierarchies and its ongoing divisions.

Stamped from the Beginning drives home Williams’ point that racism is so deeply embedded in our culture and society and that it takes this kind of fury to talk about it adequately.

Even if Stamped from the Beginning frequently weakens its more nuanced scholarship by drifting into Kendi’s trademark good vs. evil narratives, it’s undeniably a well-intentioned film that gets many things right.

Though it opens with a strong and colorful idea, by trying to touch on too many complex ideas at once, the final impression left by Stamped from the Beginning remains smudged and unclear.

In a film brimming with visual gestures, these mini portraits of anti-racists are among its most memorable.