Express
The genius of neurologist Oliver Sacks was founded on his huge empathy for his patients. Yet, for years, he struggled to come to terms with himself.
Read MoreThe Irish Times
There are no remarkable innovations in this documentary on a much-missed literary and scientific original. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who gained wider fame with books such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, talks fluently and hilariously some months before his death in 2015.
Read MoreThe Guardian
The late British neurologist and writer gets a positively glowing bio-documentary, chronicling his troubled childhood, his struggles with his homosexuality and drug addiction, and his pioneering research into autism and neurodiversity. That’s a lot to tackle, and the film just skims the surface of its subject, but it’s brightened by Sacks’s own irresistible presence.
Read MoreThe Morning Star
Through exclusive interviews with Sacks’s friends, colleagues and peers (including Jonathan Miller), as well as archive footage, the film is an eye-opening celebration of the life and work of this extraordinary scientist and man.
Read MoreEvening Standard
This documentary about the famed neurologist and author is one of the loveliest and most thought-provoking films of 2021.
Read MoreThe British Psychological Society
Our editor Jon Sutton watches 'Oliver Sacks: His Own Life', directed by Ric Burns and released on Altitude Films.
Read MoreThe Guardian
Take your pick of extraordinary moments in this excellent documentary about the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks. In 2015, aged 82, knowing he had months to live, Sacks sat down at home in New York and talked to the camera with great honesty.
Read MoreThe Scotsman
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life offers some fascinating insights into the late neurologist and best-selling author whose pioneering work found more acceptance after being dramatized in the feel-good Robin Williams/Robert De Niro movie Awakenings.
Read MoreLeftLion
Doctor, writer, biker, body-builder – these are just a few labels that could be used to describe late neurologist Oliver Sacks, subject of the documentary His Own Life. As a man who dedicated his entire career to exploring the minds of other people, Sacks eventually decided that it would only be fitting that he himself be his final case study, and this film captures his final days in all of their introspective and inspiring glory.
Read MoreThe Arts Desk
It’s well worth tracking down one of the September 29 special cinema screenings of Ric Burns' lovingly made documentary portrait of the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, or seeking it out online.
Read MoreThe Times UK
Yet one of the indelible lessons of Ric Burns’s remarkable new documentary, shot in the final months of Sacks’s life, was just how tempestuous his inner life had been. He let slip some of his secrets in his autobiography, On the Move, which was published soon after his death, but Burns’s film, full of humour and pathos, provides further insights.
Read MoreThe Different Minds podcast series
Broadcaster John Offord speaks to film director, Ric Burns about his latest film, Oliver Sacks: His Own Life.
Read MoreFilm-News.co.uk
The latest documentary feature from Ric Burns (The Civil War, American Experience) delves into the life and work of the acclaimed neurologist and writer, Oliver Sacks, and is a frank and utterly absorbing life-story, as told by Sacks, in the months leading up to his death in 2015.
Read MoreThe JC
A new documentary tells the story of the life and death of Oliver Sacks, the writer and doctor
Read More500 Days of Film
A self-described “inveterant storyteller”, Sacks has a truly remarkable story of his own. Using archival footage and photographs, Burns takes us on a chronological journey through his life. The film features an impressive number of “talking heads” (family members, colleagues, patients and close friends, including Jonathan Miller, Temple Grandin, Christof Koch, Lawrence Weschler, Isabelle Rapin, Billy Hayes Mark Homonoff and Steve Silberman) to help us put Sacks’s legacy into context.
Read MoreAttitude
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is in UK & Irish cinemas for a One Night Only special event on 29 September.
Read MoreThe Up Coming
As the title suggests, Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is a film that explores the life of neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, from his troubled youth to his twilight years. These biographical observations are framed by the cancer diagnosis received by the scientist at the time the documentary was recorded, which left him with months to live.
Read MoreGeek Vibes Nation
In Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, director Ric Burns uses a blend of archival and exclusive footage to illustrate the journey of a man who, until the end, explored and valued the lives of his patients beyond their symptoms.
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