Metacritic reviews

With whip-smart filmmaking that weaves together the physical and digital worlds, Ibelin is powerful cinema that uses its stylistic experimentation for distinctly humanist means, breathing life into a person’s story when it seemed like there were few dimensions left to explore.

The director walks the delicate tightrope of emotions so that every new development makes previous scenes all the more intense

Ree’s magnificent documentary takes its audience not only through the tragic elements of Mats’ life—the diagnosis of his illness, his decline, his untimely death—but the good parts, too, through effective testimony and powerful archival images, audio and video.

Ibelin is an overwhelming film, ugly tears all the way down. It starts off with the most unspeakable of tragedies and then, as it winds its way back through Mats’s life, becomes a bittersweet story of empowerment, acceptance, even joy.

It’s about empowerment, empathy, and the impact we can have on one another, even those we never meet. You’ll cry. It’s worth the tears.

Ibelin is an effective and creative documentary about the power of online friendships.

There’s considerable emotional truth on display throughout Benjamin Ree’s documentary.

It’s a (virtual) life-affirming approach that is certainly affecting, but can feel a little disingenuous.

Ibelin thoroughly traces Mats’ existence with talking-head interviews, family home footage, original animations of Warcraft characters, a narrator reading his posts, his handwritten video game dialogue, and a mix of animation movements and character descriptions. These techniques allow Ree to symphonically center the subject without relegating family and peers to representatives

The film is very invested in proving the validity of the social relationships created in virtual space. To me, that’s the easy part. Video games can absolutely be nourishing and substantive and healthy. And I’m not even sure Ibelin confirms that in a smart way.