Metacritic reviews

Infectious, intoxicating joy is the emotion conveyed in every frame of this ravishing, exuberant documentary.

Being able to hear this kind of playing is a special moment in time, one we don't want to end and one that we're privileged to experience.

I've never seen another movie that so clearly expresses the sensual sustenance that great folk culture provides its practitioners.

A 140-minute film masterpiece.

Wenders lets the music and the sprightly people who make it speak for themselves, although the director's ongoing fascination with the urban environment is in top form as the camera serenely cruises the streets of Havana, often at a velvety dusk.

The film is short on biographical details and the history of the music, and long on impressions of the musicians' character and motivations.

Feels like a timeless blast from the past.

Buena Vista Social Club is obviously intended less as a concert film than as a set of cinematic liner notes about the vanishing musical culture.

Lacks dramatic tension and fails to bring this great music alive. It does not sing.

It is a touching story, and the musicians (some over 90 years old) still have fire and grace onstage, but, man, does the style of this documentary get in the way.