Metacritic reviews

What's unusual about DamNation isn't its politics but its production and distribution. It was financed by Patagonia and its chairman, Yvon Chouinard, and will be screened in Patagonia stores.

Co-director and narrator Ben Knight interviews activists, officials, social jammers, and scientists, approaching the subject not with outrage, but with humor and optimism.

The film’s haphazard focus muddies the waters without doing anything to clarify the overall stakes. Fortunately, the continual visual splendors make a rather striking argument of their own.

DamNation is certainly a picturesque splash of doc advocacy, as long as you don't dwell on the cracks.

If the film is less persuasive for its lack of balance, it’s at least heartening to learn that undesirable dams can be destroyed and their rivers restored to their old ways and means.