Blaze
Reception

Blaze (2018)

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External reception

6.6
5 platform(s) · 7 ratings 4,565 votes
6.5/10 469 votes Synced 2026-08-03
6.6/10 4,011 votes Synced 2026-08-20
Audience 6.0/10 25 votes Synced 2026-07-19
Critics 7.5/10 Synced 2026-07-19
Audience 6.8/10 Synced 2026-07-18
Critics 9.5/10 Synced 2026-07-18
6.3/10 60 votes Synced 2026-07-24

External reviews

Richard Roeper · Chicago Sun-Times 88.00/100.00

It’s a carefully crafted, almost reverential character study of man and music Hawke clearly and greatly admires.

synced 2026-07-19
Michael Phillips · Chicago Tribune 88.00/100.00

Movies about reckless, chemically addled men rarely have the nerve to go whole hog with the bad behavior, because it makes for alienating company. Still: Blaze comes closer than most to an honest look at this sort of troubadour and this kind of life.

synced 2026-07-19
Bill Goodykoontz · Arizona Republic 90.00/100.00

It’s the kind of movie that, if you give yourself to it, you’ll love.

synced 2026-07-19
Joshua Alston · The A.V. Club 83.00/100.00

Blaze feels like a true passion project, an engine running on Hawke’s endless supply of enthusiasm for his subject.

synced 2026-07-19
Oliver Jones · Observer 100.00/100.00

Along with Dickey’s equally feral and vulnerable performance, what stands out most in Blaze is just how fully formed and realized Hawke’s vision is as a filmmaker.

synced 2026-07-19
A.O. Scott · The New York Times 90.00/100.00

The usual sequence of ballad-of-a-tormented-artist verses plays out: early promise; success and betrayal; redemption and death. What pulls against the relentless momentum of biography is the sweet inertia of life, a lot of which is spent drunk, in bed, on the road, hanging out with friends or all of the above.

synced 2026-07-19
Chris Nashawaty · Entertainment Weekly 83.00/100.00

Blaze isn’t a flashy movie, which seems about right since Hawke’s closest mentors and collaborators (Richard Linklater, for example) aren’t known for their look-at-me personalities. Like the real-life Foley, they’re storytellers and yarn spinners first and foremost, fame and fortune be damned.

synced 2026-07-19
John DeFore · The Hollywood Reporter 80.00/100.00

Foley's cult may never grow as big as his most ardent fans would like. But Hawke and Rosen and Dickey have given the man something better than posthumous record sales.

synced 2026-07-19
Owen Gleiberman · Variety 80.00/100.00

Blaze, which leaps around in time, telling Blaze Foley’s story by zeroing in on a handful of disparate moments, is beautifully made. It’s an organic slice of life — raw and untidy, deceptively aimless but always exploratory.

synced 2026-07-19
Dan Caffrey · Consequence 100.00/100.00

Dickey pivots between storyteller, philosopher, hopeless romantic, philanderer, asshole, loyal friend, and belligerent drunk all the way up until the very end.

synced 2026-07-19

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