The Edge of Democracy

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 30 reviews.[14] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[15]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times praised the film, calling it "a chronicle of civic betrayal and the abuse of power, and also of heartbreak, under the perspective by the filmmaker Petra Costa, who narrates the documentary in the first person."[16] Leslie Felperin of The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, saying, "Costa manages to craft an intimate primer about the state's descent into populism and the fraying of the country's democratic fabric."[17] David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a grade of B, and described it as "an angry, intimate, and haunting portrait of Brazil's recent slide back into the open jaws of dictatorship."[18] The online newspaper The A.V. Club praises the coverage of the themes, but criticizes the documentary's lack of comprehensiveness: "Costa understandably places emphasis on the unjust political machinations of Brazil’s Lower House, but also glosses over the failures of Rousseff’s government and its incontrovertible manipulation of the federal budget."[19]

The documentary caused controversy in Brazil and was considered by some to be a partisan propaganda tool by those claiming Petra Costa misrepresented historical facts about Brazil and tampered with photos removing guns in a picture of two dead leftist militants - including Pedro Pomar (a political mentor of Costa's mother) - who were killed by the police in 1976 during the military ditactorship.

Costa confirmed editing the photo, alleging she wanted to pay tribute to the men, since the National Truth Commission confirmed the scene was tampered with by the military to justify an alleged gunfight and held the State responsible for the crime.[20] Luan Sperandio of Gazeta do Povo enumerated a list of 45 alleged omissions and false narratives in the documentary, concluding that "the film fulfills its role: to ignore facts, data and evidence to sell the Worker's Party world view of the impeachment, Lula's arrest and the election of Jair Bolsonaro."[21][22]

The Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said that "the film is not a documentary but a fiction, and only fit for vultures to eat."[23]