"See it in a theater with good audio, and you will actually vibrate when 'Heroin' kicks in."
— Ben Kenigsberg, RogerEbert.com
"This is a great documentary about people who are serious about music and serious also about art, and what it means to live as an artist."
— Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"The VU feels like it’s told from the perspective of the band members and is always veering far away from talking-head doc standards."
— Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist
"As a collage of the period, The Velvet Underground is dazzling: a hypnotic act of high-wire montage. You can tell that Haynes wants to take us as close to this band as possible."
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety
"It’s a dark, disturbing and glorious film about a dark, disturbing and glorious band, and another sign that Haynes knows how to put music onscreen in a way that few other directors do."
— Steve Pond, TheWrap
"A sonic-boom look at a seismic band, The Velvet Underground dissects one of the most influential 1960s musical acts with dizzying visual flair and a structural academic rigor refracted through a showman’s prism."
— Stephen Garret, Stephen Garrett
"Making ingenious use of split-screen, experimental montage and densely layered images and sound over two fabulously entertaining hours, Haynes puts his distinctive stamp on the material while crafting a work that could almost have come from the same artistic explosion it celebrates."
— David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
