A passionate and informative look into Pearl Jam's vitality and the Seattle scene. The first half is really great, but Crowe moves slowly as the band's career starts to get attractive only for fans (late 1990s and so on).

Pearl Jam: the band that no one will take seriously until they finally release their long-awaited "smokin' reggae thunder" record. STOP HOLDING BACK ON US, EDWARD.

Solid documentary about a band that had to plug away for years and years before anyone noticed.

Some really great historical footage here and the ending was beautiful. However Cameron Crowe missed an opportunity here to go in depth on the later years of the band (post-Yield), it felt increasingly superficial and self-congratulatory to me as we got nearer to current time.

Music docs like this one seem to really rely on the viewer caring about the band. I like Pearl Jam a lot and so this was a lot of fun to watch for me. A lot of music, some insights into the band and some insights into the human condition. The way it incorporates historical footage so seamlessly and the focus on the evolution of the band as a group of individuals, provides for some good general insights, though Crowe could have done a bit better job with fleshing out the personal processes.

A lot of time is spent on the early years and that's probably fair. Most fans haven't hung around for the whole ride (so far) and so surprisingly this caters to a broader base. The quality in their songs stands out as they are good as they were when they first came out. Can't say the same about Nirvana imo. They've all seemed to age quite normally as well.

A solid, fan-oriented documentary. Crowe is not interested in exploring the darkest corners or asking the toughest questions about the band's history (addiction, power). He's an unabashed fan here, raising difficult issues, dealing with them briefly, and ultimately working to show the peaceful and communal place the band has arrived at after two decades together. Through old and more recent footage, including several entire songs, the film reminds me why I like these guys and their music so much

A fantastic documentary that only Cameron Crowe would've been able to pull off. It would've called for going through hours of archival footage and he put it together to tell the story in a unique way from the perspective of the fan, which is exactly the type of people that would pay to see this movie in the first place. Couldn't really ask for any more.

"A loving, gracefully crafted retrospective that shrewdly eschews Behind the Music conventions at most turns." - Nick Schager

Good, but still a bit disappointing. Adding at least another 30-60 minutes to the length would have allowed more deeper exploration of certain things and time periods.

I thought this was an excellent look into Pearl Jam and even a little into the entire Seattle scene that shaped them.

I am a huge Pearl Jam fan and would give this a 100 based on my personal satisfaction. Of course, it's not a cinematic masterstroke and it doesn't exactly break tremendous new ground in terms of storytelling or cinematography - but it is one of the finest music documentaries I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. To me, it covered everything necessary in the history of the band (and even earlier in the rise of the Seattle rock scene). There is much to enjoy, even for casual rock listeners.