American Doctor

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Movie Info & Cast

Release Date:

Aug 14, 2026

Runtime:

1hr 31m

Synopsis

When three American doctors-Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian-enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.
Moviegoers are saying
Reviewers call American Doctor essential, brutal viewing: Poh Si Teng's film follows three physicians at Nasser Medical Complex and refuses to pixelate what it shows, which many viewers read as the film's moral core. Words like 'horrific,' 'gut-wrenching,' and 'very hard to watch' recur, but nearly every reviewer frames that discomfort as the point. Oddly, the numeric ratings cluster around 4/10 even as the text is close to unanimous praise, so the scores seem to measure something other than enjoyment.
Top Mentions
Witness-Dont-Look-Away
Gut-Punch-Doc
Essential-Viewing
Conscience-Cinema
Hard-To-Watch
Frontline-Heartbreak
Summary generated from the text of Atom User reviews

Letterboxd User Reviews

4.2
5.7K
3.4K
2.2K
RATINGS 20 FANS
4.2
  • Feb 1, 2026

    three U.S. surgeons travel to Gaza in this furious, confrontational, and incredibly damning call to resist Israel & America's STILL-ongoing genocide. eschews heroism to focus on evil, and gradually coheres into a shattering lament against the erasure of Palestine and its…

    987 Likes
    davidehrlich
    davidehrlich
    Aug 14, 2026

    Like millions upon millions of people around the world, including a much higher percentage of the Jewish population than Zionists would ever care to admit, I have been haunted by the profound helplessness I feel in response to the ongoing genocide that Israel is committing…

    927 Likes
    davidehrlich
    davidehrlich
    Jan 30, 2026

    Thoroughly appreciated how this manages to document the average person’s subconscious desire to shield themselves and others from this level of horrific violence by showing the filmmaker’s own knee-jerk reaction to blur or cut images of murdered children in Gaza. The doctor…

    222 Likes
    claira curtis
    claira curtis
  •
    Jan 30, 2026

    "You have a responsibility, as I do, to tell the truth. You pixilate this and that's journalistic malpractice." This is a doc not for those who have been paying attention to the horrific news out of Gaza for the last few years. This is for those of you who have chosen to…

    192 Likes
    Marya E. Gates
    Marya E. Gates
    Aug 17, 2026

    I defy anyone to watch this and not feel disturbed, angry, and helpless. The images and stories are profoundly disturbing, though they won’t be new to anyone who has been paying attention over the last few years. This doc focuses heavily on the unique challenges…

    168 Likes
    Kit Lazer
    Kit Lazer
    Jan 31, 2026

    Take note. I’ve seen the best documentary at Sundance 2026, and it’s AMERICAN DOCTOR. A brutal, harrowing, and absolutely vital look at three American physicians who voluntarily enter Gaza to save lives as hospitals are deliberately targeted and resources are scarce.…

    149 Likes
    Matt Neglia
    Matt Neglia
  •
    Aug 10, 2026

    A harrowing look at the work and lives of 3 physicians (Thaer Ahmad, Mark Pearlmutter, and Feroze Sidwha) as they desperately try to swim upstream against the relentless current of Israel’s genocide. It’s unfortunate that these stories often need to center Americans to…

    88 Likes
    Dan Monaghan
    Dan Monaghan
    Jan 31, 2026

    Horrifying, gut-wrenching, sobering, anger-inducing, essential. God bless these doctors who are tirelessly working to not only save lives but change minds, and God do the opposite to everyone who made that work necessary.

    88 Likes
    David Chen
    David Chen
    Feb 1, 2026

    "This is what my tax dollars did. This is what your tax dollars did. This is what my neighbor's tax dollars did. They have the right to know the truth. You have a responsibility to tell the truth."

    83 Likes
    Madelyn 🍉
    Madelyn 🍉

Atom Users Reviews

No one has posted a user review yet.

Metacritic

86
metacritic
Based on 12 Critics
tbd

USER SCORE (0)

There are no user reviews yet
80
Aug 24, 2026

We observe them lamenting how powerless they feel: Their medical skills can do some good, but not nearly enough. And when they reluctantly return to America, they agonize over their guilt at not being able to do more — and what of Gaza will remain when they eventually get back.

Metacritic review by Tim Grierson
Tim Grierson
Los Angeles Times
91
Aug 14, 2026

The result is a documentary that implicitly honors these incredible doctors, but more acutely leverages their plight to address the numbing exasperation that such an atrocity is designed to instill among otherwise good people. It’s a documentary premised on the idea that nobody can stop the madness on their own, and how that’s all the more reason for everybody to resist it on their own terms.

David Ehrlich
IndieWire
85
Aug 13, 2026

The challenge the doc tasks itself with meeting, then, is whether it can compel audiences of any political background to listen to and genuinely consider all of the doctors’ testimonies without prematurely writing them off. On this point, I can imagine few viewers making it through the other side of the film unmoved.

Metacritic review by Barry Hertz
Barry Hertz
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is American Doctor (2026)?
The movie is 1hr 31min long.
What's American Doctor (2026) about?
When three American doctors-Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian-enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.