Chasing Red Reviews: What Critics, Runners and CNN Said

Chasing Red, the 2015 documentary about the running of the bulls in Pamplona, has been well reviewed wherever it has been reviewed. Film Threat gave it 8.5 out of 10, Indie Wrap called it “exciting, exhilarating and deeper than we thought it would be,” and it won Best of the Fest, the highest award at the LA Indie Film Festival, in 2015.

The praise that has counted most to the people who made it came from somewhere else: bull runners, the people who know the run from the street. This page collects what critics, runners, audiences and the press said about the film, each with its outlet and date, and how CNN came to build an hour of television around two of its runners in 2023.

The review that mattered most: bull runners

A film about the encierro has two audiences. One has never seen the run. The other runs it every July, knows the street stretch by stretch, and notices anything that rings false. Dennis Clancey, who directed Chasing Red and ran in it, says the second audience is the one whose verdict means the most.

“I think the thing that meant the most to me, and continues to mean the most to me, is the review of bull runners. People who know the tradition, who go to San Fermines, who applaud it as a compelling and accurate portrayal of this tradition of bull running.”

Dennis Clancey, director of Chasing Red

Peter Milligan is one of those runners. He wrote Bulls Before Breakfast, a book about running with the bulls and the Fiesta de San Fermín, and had run in Pamplona for 12 years when WBUR’s Only A Game interviewed him about it in 2015. In a review he sent to the filmmakers, he called Chasing Red “an exciting and wholly accurate film” about the run.

Accuracy is the test runners apply, because so much of what circulates about the run is footage of first-timers with no sense of what is happening around them. Chasing Red was made by a runner and tells its story through what four runners actually did on the route over the eight runs of San Fermín 2012. Who those runners are, and what separates a runner from someone who ran once, is in What is a bull runner?

What the critics said

Film Threat: 8.5 out of 10

Bobby LePire reviewed the film for Film Threat on January 31, 2024, and scored it 8.5 out of 10. He read it as a story of tenacity: four runners setting out to run all eight runs of the fiesta, and what happens when things go wrong. He praised the cinematography for making the viewer feel present in Spain with the director and his friends, the interviews with family and friends that give each runner depth, the film’s look at why they run, and its pace. His verdict in four words: “Chasing Red is fascinating.”

He had one reservation. In his view, the history of the Fiesta de San Fermín and of the run itself could come earlier in the film.

Indie Wrap

Indie Wrap published its review on January 21, 2024, without a rating. It praised the sharp editing and pacing, noted that nothing in the film is staged, and said it works both as a way in for people who barely know the event and for those who follow it closely. Its summary line is the one Wikipedia quotes too: “Exciting, exhilarating and deeper than we thought it would be.”

Was there any criticism?

Every review found for this page is positive. The only reservation in print is Film Threat’s point about where the history sits in the film. No negative review was found. Rotten Tomatoes lists no critic reviews for the film, so it has no Tomatometer score.

The award and the festivals

Chasing Red premiered in 2015 and won Best of the Fest, the highest award at the LA Indie Film Festival. Wikipedia lists it as the Best of the Fest Grand Jury Prize. When the film came to Phoenix that spring, Arizona Foothills Magazine reported the win in its piece on the screening, on March 31, 2015.

The film went on to other festivals that year, including the Newport Beach Film Festival, which ran April 23 to 30, 2015. How the film was made and released is in Making Chasing Red.

The press around the theatrical release

Much of the press came with the theatrical screenings in 2015, when local outlets covered the film as it reached their cities.

• Chicago Sun-Times, April 14, 2015. Misha Davenport previewed the Chicago screening the next evening, April 15, at the Showplace Icon at Roosevelt Collection, followed by a question and answer session with Bill Hillmann, a Chicago writer and one of the film’s runners, and Dennis Clancey.
• Arizona Foothills Magazine, March 31, 2015. Covered the Phoenix screening and the LA Indie award.

Two other pieces bracket the film. Before it was finished, Travel Edits ran a long question and answer interview with Dennis, around 2013, about running the bulls for years before filming, raising money on Kickstarter, and gathering footage from 19 types of camera. After the film became available to rent and download online, We Are The Mighty published Paul Szoldra’s profile of Dennis, “This Iraq war veteran has been running with the bulls since 2007,” on February 5, 2020.

The film was praised on television too. On Men in Blazers, on Esquire TV, Michael Davies said: “It’s an amazing film!”

What audiences say

On Rotten Tomatoes, Chasing Red has a 100% audience score from more than 100 ratings, as of October 23, 2026. Audience scores change, so check the current figure there.

The other audience response is harder to measure and happens every July. More than a decade after it was filmed, people in Pamplona still recognize the film, and recognize Dennis and the other runners from it who still run there.

Seeing Red: CNN and the runners of Chasing Red

On November 26, 2023, CNN aired Seeing Red: Running With the Bulls, an hour of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper. Correspondent David Culver went to Pamplona and ran for the first time. The two runners at the center of the hour were Dennis Clancey and Bill Hillmann, two of the four runners in Chasing Red.

It began with a call. CNN reached out to Dennis a little more than a month before the fiesta, while the first season of the series was in production. Culver had seen Chasing Red. He wanted to know whether, in Dennis’s professional opinion as someone who had made a documentary in Pamplona, something like it could be pulled off in so little time. He also asked Dennis to recommend other runners to approach, and to talk through what the shoot might involve.

Dennis offered whatever information he had, and help with where to place cameras and any other questions the team had. In his view, the production team liked the thrust of Chasing Red: they were not remaking it, but they saw practical production lessons in it.

In the episode Dennis is the runner beside Culver on the street, guiding him through his first run, the same part he played for first-timer Josiah Lloyd in Chasing Red.

CNN built its hour around two of the same runners eleven years after Chasing Red was filmed. Seeing Red and the other films about the run are compared in Running of the bulls documentaries.

Watch it and decide

The reviews are a guide, and at 57 minutes the film is easy to watch in one sitting. The story of the film and its four runners is in What is Chasing Red?, and the current streaming options are in the where to watch section. Dennis still runs in Pamplona every July and teaches first-time runners through Encierro, the company he owns.

Questions people ask

Is Chasing Red a good documentary?

The reviews say so. Film Threat scored it 8.5 out of 10, Indie Wrap called it exciting and deeper than expected, and it won Best of the Fest at the LA Indie Film Festival. Bull runners, the hardest audience for a film about the run, have praised it for accuracy.

What is Chasing Red’s Rotten Tomatoes score?

It has no Tomatometer, because Rotten Tomatoes lists no critic reviews for it. Its audience score was 100% from more than 100 ratings when checked on October 23, 2026.

Did anyone criticize Chasing Red?

No negative review was found. Film Threat’s one reservation was that the history of San Fermín and the run could come earlier in the film.

Is CNN’s Seeing Red connected to Chasing Red?

Its correspondent, David Culver, had seen Chasing Red and asked Dennis Clancey for advice before filming. Dennis and Bill Hillmann, two of Chasing Red’s four runners, are the two main runners in Seeing Red, and Dennis ran beside Culver on his first run.

When did Seeing Red air?

November 26, 2023, on CNN, as an episode of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper.