sundance

WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING

SEASON 2 REVIEWS

Newark Star Ledger
While Newark has its own set of unique problems and characters, filmmakers Levin and Mark Benjamin said the series will strike a chord with viewers throughout the United States.
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New York Post - Robert Rorke
Already the winner of a prestigious Peabody award, the six-part show plays out like a real-life version of “The Wire,” with an American city coming apart at the seams.
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Denver Post
"Brick City" is a reality show like no other — the thinking person's gritty, politically and personally fascinating nonfiction.
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Wall Street Journal
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The Daily Beast
"Brick City" is perhaps the finest show on television today. The quality of the characters with their ongoing narratives are expertly interwoven into a compelling and provocative arc.
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Associated Press
"Brick City" (whose title speaks to the unyielding spirit of this city of 280,000) remains a rich and engrossing series that makes good on its claim as a nonfiction blend of "The Wire" and "The West Wing."
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The Root
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Greater City Providence
This is not a slick media piece released by the city as a marketing tool, the series tells the real story of Newark, and it is often not pretty.
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AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

Gold Derby shines Emmy light onto BRICK CITY
Tom O'Neil of Gold Derby, a division of the Los Angeles Times, interviews co-creators/directors Mark Benjamin and Marc Levin.
Listen to the Podcast

BRICK CITY Wins a Peabody Award!
View the Complete List of Winners



SEASON 1 REVIEWS

Entertainment Weekly — September 19, 2009
…the miniseries about Newark unspools like a real-life version of The Wire, covering street life, police officers, and crusading mayor Cory Booker with unflinching conviction.

Newark Star Ledger — September 15, 2009 — Alan Sepinwall
In that attempt to illuminate the lives of a cross-section of a struggling city — and the difficulty that individuals have in trying to swim against an institutionalized tide — BRICK CITY isn't unlike a non-fiction version of HBO's The Wire.
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Associated Press — Frazier Moore
There's more than one way to make reality TV. One way, you hand-pick volatile participants, throw them together and make sure sparks fly... A different approach is that of BRICK CITY an engrossing five-hour portrait of Newark, N.J.

Associated Press — Victor Epstein
A new documentary series captures the battle to craft a national blueprint for urban transformation in New Jersey's largest city. The five one-hour episodes of BRICK CITY depict the struggle for change
in Newark, long a symbol of urban neglect, from very different
perspectives...

O Magazine — J.W.
Like the acclaimed 2005 documentary STREET FIGHT, about Booker's first mayoral campaign, BRICK CITY is a portrait of a born star: candid, passionate, handsome, genial, dazzlingly eloquent yet refreshingly unslick...

Chicago Tribune — Spetember 21, 2009 — Maureen Ryan
Newark's energetic young mayor, Cory Booker, is the centerpiece of a compelling five-part documentary about the attempts — from Booker, from the revamped police department and from committed citizens — to pull this struggling city out of crisis.
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Washington Post — September 21, 2009 — Hank Stuever
All you fans of The Wire, who went on and on about how real and gripping it was? It's time to put your DVR where your mouth is and invest the time required to watch BRICK CITY — a sprawling, absorbing, five-part documentary about life and crime in Newark, airing this week on the Sundance Channel.
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New York Times — September 20, 2009 — Richard G. Jones
Film Finds Hope Living Amid Newark's Troubles
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