.
We Come as Friends received mostly positive reviews upon its premiere at the
2014 Sundance Film Festival. On
review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. On
Metacritic, the film has a score of 80 out of 100 from 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Rob Nelson of
Variety wrote in his review that
We Come as Friends becomes more disturbing as it goes, building to a terrible crescendo in a series of scenes near the end of the film." Boyd van Hoeij in his review for
The Hollywood Reporter called the film "A sobering and superbly edited documentary about South Sudan, a country that became independent in 2011 but turns out to be not so independent after all." Dan Schindel from
Nonfics praised the film by saying that "A devastating, haunting, but absolutely necessary travelogue of South Sudan. This film is an instructional in how imperialism in Africa has not died off, but merely taken on a new form." Chuck Bowen of
Slant magazine gave the film four out of five stars and said that "
We Come As Friends is terrifyingly direct and intimate. Portraying the neocolonialist exploitation of the recently established South Sudan, director Hubert Sauper devises a metaphor that's both risky and brilliantly evocative." In his review for
Slug magazine, Cody Kirkland praised the director Sauper by saying that "Hubert Sauper presents a thought-provoking look inside the war-torn and extremely impoverished mother continent" and called the film "a powerful, troubling and possibly life-changing look into the real people involved in this monumental disaster, and the real consequences of economic and cultural imperialism." ==Accolades==