A Grin Without a Cat is a potently poetic diatribe regarding political fervor, social upheaval, and oppression of all kinds.

| Jan 23, 2021

Epic (or perhaps encyclopedic, or maybe satiric).

| Sep 27, 2018

The greatest documentary ever made about the struggle for socialism. The real thing, I should add, rather than the epithet applied by Glenn Beck to the Democratic Party and its leader Barack Hoover.

| Jun 18, 2010

It's not your usual political doc.

| Original Score: A | Oct 15, 2009

Depending on your mood and your familiarity with international politics from 30 to 40 years ago, A Grin Without a Cat can be either talky and esoteric or haunting and prophetic.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 14, 2009

It recreates the feel of the period, but in the end its obscurity undercuts its power.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | May 11, 2009

A Grin Without a Cat plays more like a creative mix tape than a standard hunk of journalism.

| May 7, 2009

Just to take in Grin's first few moments, a mash-up of Battleship Potemkin and police whacking May '68 protesters, is to see a mind sifting through chaos and making beautiful, critical sense of it.

| Original Score: 6/6 | May 6, 2009

A masterpiece among masterpieces, the two-part, three-hour A Grin Without a Cat is Chris Marker's most ambitious, clear-headed string of cinematic clauses and ideological couplets, and also his most impenetrable.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 5, 2009

massive, towering, and impassioned

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 3, 2009

This slapdash documentary about left wing political movements is probably best understood in the original French and was a lot more relevant in 1977 when it was first made.

| Original Score: C | Apr 24, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 18, 2005

While it regards 1967 as the key turning point of the 20th century, and returns again and again to images of dissidents in the streets, it's alarmingly current.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 17, 2003

An exhaustive investigation into the roots and after-effects of the revolutions and counter-revolutions that rocked France, the U.S., China, Latin America and Czechoslovakia in 1967 and 1968.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 2, 2002

A timely look back at civil disobedience, anti-war movements and the power of strong voices.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 8, 2002

This is a movie about the world at war with itself, and the result is riveting, sublime and unforgettable.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 26, 2002

Although it's a bit smug and repetitive, this documentary engages your brain in a way few current films do.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 29, 2002

A three-hour cinema master class.

| Jun 18, 2002

Achieves a sort of filmic epiphany that revels in the true potential of the medium.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 6, 2002

It's always fascinating to watch Marker the essayist at work.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 1, 2002