"Mind-boggling live footage and TV clips offer smashups, trenchant insights and hilarious pratfalls along with some of the most staggeringly powerful rock music you will ever see, hear and feel."
- Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone

"Mr. Stein has managed to tackle his very interesting subject with diligence, myopic intensity and no discernable point of view."
- Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"It's watchable because The Who is as good a combo to see as to hear; because guitarist-composer Pete Townshend has always possessed a gift - unusual among rock artists - for articulating his own shifting frustrations and aspirations, and those of a generation; and because drummer Keith Moon, who died last year, was, in Townshend's words, "different from anyone else I'd ever met."
- Daily Variety

"The reportage format, like a newsreel through the years, befits their status as one of the longest intact major rock groups."
- Tom Allen, Village Voice

"That rare animal, a rock documentary which entertains and informs in equal quantities, The Kids Are Alright is a movie that comes over as a celebration of rock 'n' roll itself as much as of one of its more masterful exponents."
- Frances Lass, Time Out

"Overlong and disjointed, yet frequently exhilarating documentary on The Who that manages to capture the anarchic spirit of the group - and of rock 'n' roll."
- Leonard Maltin

"The Kids Are Alright is a fanzine movie without a fanzine's attention to chronological detail. And yet for those appreciators of the Who's musical contributions to whom this material isn't familiar, the memory jolt can quicken the heart."
- Mitch Cohen, Creem

"At its very core, however, the film is about the music and the music is awesome. Whether the group is horsing around as the musical interlude on a comedy variety show or whether they are in a serious performance trying to top what they did the night before, the songs are always energized, intelligent and heart-stoppingly fresh."
- Doug Pratt, Hollywood Reporter

Between Townshend's arrogant funny pronouncements and Moon's lunacy the interviews are as enjoyable as the music. All in all, a perfect tribute to a band that was as funny as it was dangerous and loud.
- Brad Laidman, Film Threat

"There's plenty of good music and excitement here, but there's also an underlying sense of melancholy; Keith Moon's decline is vividly on display here, and it's sad to see him devolve from an intensely alive force of nature (and drummer extraordinaire) to a ravaged, bloated burn-out case. It'll give you the blues. Keith, what happened?"
- Marshall Crenshaw, Hollywood Rock: A Guide to Rock 'n' Roll Movies

"...one of the most entertaining rock docs ever made, a defining film in the then tiny, pre-MTV genre...Pretty boy Roger Daltrey and poker-faced John Entwistle were outshone by Pete Townshend's guitar, songs, and ideas (and early instrument destruction), which dictated the group's direction. But it's Keith Moon's sociopathic behavior that dominates the film, defining a rock attitude for arrested adolescents everywhere. Spinal Tap were surely taking notes."
- Jason Gross, The Village Voice

"The structure of the 1979 Who documentary The Kids Are Alright is so perfect that it's amazing more rock filmmakers haven't adopted it...[it] works as a time-capsule compendium of great live performances, and even now, Stein's clearinghouse approach is too rare...The Kids Are Alright derives its meaning from pictures of the musicians in full flight: Roger Daltrey swinging his microphone, Townshend windmilling, and John Entwistle standing stock-still. Stein understood that watching Keith Moon pound his way through "I Can't Explain" is explanation enough." - Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

Compiled by Brian Cady