Rating: 
Summary: The Best
Review: I watched this film and was amazed by it. It moves very quickly and was not in the least bit boring. It was very interesting to watch all the different types of birds, and all the beautiful scenery along with it. This should have taken home the Oscar for sure. Not much else to say but WATCH IT. I don't know how this film couldn't agree with everyone.
Rating:
Summary: An Enrapturing Film!
Review: As a fan of the film Baraka, I was in search of yet another documentary featuring breathtaking scenery and enhancing music. I've found that and more in Winged Migration. Containing minimal narraration, this film captivated me with stunning imagery of birds flying over picturesque scenery. Not your usual documentary on animals, this film also won me over with its superb soundtrack. I am a fan of the Himalaya soundtrack, and while watching Winged Migration I thought the music sounded similar to Himalaya's. Indeed, at the end I learned that it was the very same composer who created this enrapturing music. I wholeheartedly recommened this remarkable film. It's one of the few DVDs I'd like to own.
Rating:
Summary: Soaring, Gorgeous
Review: Winged Migration is a totally gorgeous film. It shows pelicans, swans, geese, grouse, terns, parrots, toucans, penguins, ducks, a bald eagle, and a few others. You witness their migration as they cross continents and countries and then back again. It is interspersed with narration, text, and dreamy music (which is absolutely gorgeous). It tells a wonderful story in few words. Many places you wonder how in the world they did it. There are many scenes; touching, sweet, soaring, breath-taking, and brutal. In many parts of the movie the birds encounter death and near-death situations. It is heart-wrenching to see birds once soaring peacefully cut drastically to the ground, and horrible to hear the crack of a gun. Many people complain that some of the scenes in the movie are not real. Yes, some of the birds were imported and others were tame. Many were saved from their situations. Maybe the scenes weren't real, but the point is that they could still happen. Maybe they weren't able to get the real thing on camera, but they do happen. This is a must-see film. You will leave it seeing birds entirely differently. Though it is probable that the novelty would eventually wear off, I seriously doubt it. This film is breath-taking and spell-bounding time and again, and, I believe, seriously worth getting.
Rating: 
Summary: amazing documentary
Review: Forget "Ode to a Skylark." "Winged Migration" - adhering to the proposition that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words - offers a soaring, visually astonishing tribute to all the cranes, geese, swans and assorted other birds that have, since time immemorial, made long and dangerous airborne treks from one corner of the globe to another. Like no nature special you've ever seen, directors Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats and Jacques Perrin and no fewer than fifteen credited cinematographers create a visual poem to these feathered marvels by taking us right into the thick of the action, somehow managing to get their cameras to fly, in beautifully coordinated fashion, right alongside the birds at amazing speeds and altitudes. Seeing is believing in the case of this film, and even after seeing it, you still may not believe it. That's how eye-popping and visually dazzling an experience this film is. With only minimal narration (some of it spoken and some of it subtitled), the filmmakers provide some helpful information regarding the particular species we are seeing and its migratory patterns. But the film is far more of an aesthetic visual experience than an educational one. For long stretches of the movie, the birds merely fly along in majestic silence or backed up by haunting symphonic mood music (much of it reminiscent of the work in "Koyaanisqatsi"). In addition to the birds themselves and their amazing feats, the cinematography captures, with blindingly crystal clarity, the awesome beauty of the various landscapes through which these extraordinary creatures travel (there's even a shot of the birds flying past the Twin Towers). Watching this film is truly like being transported to another world. Nature has probably never looked this good on film.
Rating:
Summary: Be the Thrill
Review: A few days ago I stumbled on a online video from one of the first satellite launches, shot way back in 1984, set to music.
For the first time since the beep-beep of Sputnik, I *got* it!!The visceral thrill just ran like shivers up my spine. So imagine when NetFlix sent me "Winged Migration". I popped it in the DVD, not even sure I remembered what it was about. The movie grabs you at hello. That tiny red bird hopping after you, transition to the goose trapped in the net, kid setting it free, then suddenly you're *flying*! !!Wow!! My kids jumped up on the couch and started yelling, the effect was so intense.
For the next hour and a half, you will be in image after image, flying as you are above the earth, wing on wing with birds in flight, every honk, peep and chirp, even the rush of the air!There are some images so intense, they'll burn on your brain. Rent it if you don't believe me, then buy it for those rainy days when you're climbing out of your skin in a quiet house. Winged Migration should be in every daycare romper room, playing on a big plasma screen on the wall. It should be screened at every high school graduation and bar mitzvah, at every wedding, and at the presidential inauguration. W.M. is the closest you'll ever get to reality, as it is.
Rating:
Summary: Birds, birds, birds, wonderful birds!!
Review: I was reluctant to even watch this movie, as I thought, another wildlife documentary. Was I ever wrong! This is the most beautiful, wonderful and exciting documentary I have seen. I laughed, I cried, I yelled. No one should miss this experience. I am not overly fond of birds, but now I feel a profound admiration for these wonders of Nature. The documentary is EXCELLENT, the quality incredible and of course, the winged heroes deserve all the merit. All we can do to protect and preserve the lifes and habitats of these creatures will enrich us and maybe, maybe, make us a little more conscious of the wonders that surround us.
Rating:
Summary: Migrating to one of Nature's Wonders
Review: We have never been moved as much as we were with the way this film was made. We are sorry we had not seen this on the big screen. We saw it first on Cable, then rented the DVD from which we got a taste of the way the film was made. It was a most touching story. Our hats are off to Jacques Perrin and the staff who made it happen. We are buying the film for our library. It is the best investment since Disney's Nature adventures. We should be reminded that these birds along with other of Nature's creatures are a vital part of our world. It is important that we keep that balance of nature and respect for these living species. Without them the impact on our lives could be dramatically changed, and in my opinion, not for the better.
Rating:
Summary: Naturalistic art -- at its best
Review: This movie gives you something. Most aerial shots make you wonder how they achieved them, both technically and artistically.
And at the same time, you get physically close enough to the flying birds to see their muscles work and their eyes gaze forward, and this touching you, you start feeling and understanding their lives.
Then the film will show you how some human activity is impacting the lives of moving birds, which we generally would know, but not exactly feel emotionally the way seeing it makes us. What I liked the most about this film is that it is very artistic while at the same time very real, which are two things you don't get very often nowadays. If you didn't love birds: watch this and you will.
Don't hesitate, thinking that it'll be boring. It's not!
Don't think you wouldn't watch it a second time. You will.
Rating:
Summary: Innovative, humble, and breathtaking
Review: What a beautiful concept, start to finish! I love documentaries that don't try to fabricate tension, or use their subjects for political tools. Winged Migration accomplishes all of this, while showing much of this world's beauty, and the feathered gods and goddesses that see more of it than any human is able. I kept wanting to tap a penguin on the shoulder, asking, "Do you realize you're kicking up dust on Antarctica! You lucky little bastard!" How touching was the juxtaposition of the caged fowl communicating with the free and worldly birds flying overhead? Moving does not even begin to describe the editorial genius. Perrin(our narrator) was also nice enough to leave his ego out of the film. Barely introducing every 30 minutes or so, and using subtitles as unobtrusively as possible, we are allowed to join this vast community and soar along the coasts of this globe. One is grateful for the disclaimer that opens this piece: that no special effects were used to present the flying creatures we see. When we are shown such photographic brilliance as geese flying below a starry night, we know one day, if one is fortunate and perseveres, that vista is tangible. There is tragedy. Again, we are not forced to feel for or against the fowl. We are also not exposed to the more current questions of food chain, etc... We are merely shown the reality of this migration, sans intrusion. A brilliant piece of film.
Rating:
Summary: Very Nice
Review: I watched this movie tonight with my two daughters. I give it 5 stars because of the scenery and the beauty of every shot. There is limited narrations throughout the scenes. This is not a movie, nor is it really a documentary, it is more art and the splendor of birds, their migrating behaviors/patterns shot from many different locations all around the world. Once you start watching it, it is hard to turn away.
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