In his third phase covered in the last part of the film, Bowie emerges from a two year hiatus where he remakes himself in the image of a suave musical artist often dressed in tailored Saville Row double breasted men's business suits.

[5][6] Working in cooperation with the estate, Morgen was granted access to an archive of five million different items, including paintings, drawings, recordings, photographs, films, and journals.

[15] The music on the album consists of rare or previously unreleased live tracks, as well as newly created remixes, interspersed with monologues from Bowie himself.

The website's critics' consensus reads: "An audiovisual treat for Bowie fans, Moonage Daydream takes an appropriately distinctive approach to one of modern music's most mercurial artists.

"[19] Robert Daniels, writing for RogerEbert.com, praised the film's editing, and called it "a bombastic, overstimulating, poignant, life-affirming, and risk-taking summation of the artist's ethos and maturation as a person.

"[20] Fionnuala Halligan of Screen Daily called the film "a pristine sensory voyage, with astonishing sound", and lauded its presentation as "skilled and satisfyingly unconventional".

[21] Entertainment Weekly's Joshua Rothkopf gave the film a grade of "A−", complimenting the remixed music by Tony Visconti and noting that, "Occasionally, Morgen's flow can feel belabored and imprecise, [...] But pruning would hamper the unencumbered risk-taking on display," an approach which Rothkopft writes "instantly vaults the effort to the top of the Bowie docs.

"[22] Siddhant Adlakha of IndieWire gave the film a "B+", characterizing it thus: "More sensory experience than straightforward recounting, [Moonage Daydream] is about feeling your way through a chaotic world with Ziggy Stardust as your anchor.

"[23] Paul Sinclair of SuperDeluxeEdition was more critical in his review, praising the film's integration of archival footage, animation, interview audio, and music while criticizing the pacing and length, describing the result as "oddly unmoving" and stating that "the film is at least half an hour too long, a feeling accentuated by the reuse of clips you've already seen on a number of occasions which gives a rather circular, haven't-we-been-here-before vibe to proceedings."

Sinclair also criticized a perceived lack of sufficient coverage for certain periods of Bowie's career, singling out his tenure on EMI America Records and his membership in Tin Machine.