The film devotes some time to documenting its own production process, with director Jimmy Chin and his camera crew discussing the challenge of not endangering climber Alex Honnold by distracting him or pressuring him to attempt the climb at all. According to director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, this was solved with a lot of practice. To record sound from Honnold, who was often too far from the cameras to use a wireless microphone, the filmmakers created a special recording device and had Honnold carry it inside his chalk bag. The film was made by National Geographic Partners, which at the time of the film's release was majority-owned by 21st Century Fox, with the remainder owned by the National Geographic Society.
Reception
Box office
Free Solo grossed $17.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $11.1 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $28.6 million. The film made $300,804 from four theaters in its opening weekend, surpassing Eighth Grade and An Inconvenient Truth, respectively, for the highest per-venue average of 2018 and of a documentary all-time with $75,201. It expanded to 41 theaters in its second weekend, making $562,786. The film grossed $859,051 from 129 theaters in its third weekend and $1 million from 251 theaters in its fourth weekend. During its fifth weekend, it earned $1.06 million from 394 theaters, bringing the total box office gross to over $5 million.
Critical response
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 144 reviews, with an average rating of 8.21/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Free Solo depicts athletic feats that many viewers will find beyond reason – and grounds the attempts in passions that are all but universal." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Writing for Variety, Peter Debrudge said, "Apart from a slow stretch around the hour mark, the filmmakers keep things lively, featuring test runs at Zion National Park's Moonlight Buttress and the nearly sheer limestone cliffs in Taghia, Morocco." Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair called the film "bracingly made" and wrote, "I left the theater invigorated and rattled, in awe of this charismatic man's accomplishment but scared that it will inspire others to attempt the same... But maybe Free Solos detailed, transfixing portrait of their hero will at least show some sort of barrier to entry, communicating to those eager wannabes that very few people indeed are built quite like Alex Honnold. And thank goodness, in a way, for that."
