On
review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Inspiring and fascinating,
Marwencol depicts its subject with heartfelt tenderness, raising poignant questions about art and personal tragedy along the way." The site awarded the film its Golden Tomato Award for the best-reviewed documentary of the year. On
Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The
Los Angeles Times called the film "an exhilarating, utterly unique experience", while the
Village Voice said that it's "exactly the sort of mysterious and almost holy experience you hope to get from documentaries and rarely do." The film was in the year-end top-10 lists of the
Boston Globe,
The Globe and Mail,
Slate,
New York magazine,
The Oregonian,
National Public Radio, and many others. The film was included in
Entertainment Weekly's July 6, 2012, article "50 Best Movies You've Never Seen". In the 2012
Slate article and online poll, "The Golden Age of Documentaries: What's the Best Doc of the Last 5 Years?",
Marwencol was ranked No. 1 in the poll. In the 2012
PBS/
POV online poll, "The 100 Greatest Documentaries of All Time",
Marwencol was ranked No. 91 in the poll. In the April 22, 2013,
New York article, "How Documentary Became the Most Exciting Kind of Filmmaking",
Marwencol was among the films in the accompanying list, "The 20 Essential Documentaries of the Century". In September 2016,
Cinema Eye Honors named
Marwencol as one of the 20 top nonfiction films of the past decade, based on a poll of 110 key figures in the documentary community. In October 2019
Paste Magazine included
Marwencol in their article, "The 30 Best Documentaries of the 2010s". The film was listed as #23. ==In popular culture==