More of an anthropological essay than straight-up documentary, Beetle Queen shows the latest craze in Japanese culture.

| Mar 21, 2021

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is like the best of ambient music: comforting, emotive, overwhelming at times, and always worth the time spent giving it your full attention.

| Dec 10, 2020

Director Jessica Orek draws us into a culture where every living creature - even the tiniest one - is equally important.

| Mar 8, 2019

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is more like a series of haiku stitched together than a formally persuasive documentary. If you're like me, you won't love insects any more after watching the film, but you will better appreciate the idea of them.

| Sep 18, 2017

After initially pondering the basic fact that creepy-crawlies are not always viewed with affection elsewhere, the film delves into Japanese thought and culture.

| Jul 1, 2013

A lyrical, slow-moving documentary on Japan's abiding fascination with insects.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 3, 2011

[A] surprisingly delightful little film...

| Jul 3, 2011

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is a bizarre, fascinating and frequently beautiful documentary but it's also let down by a frustrating lack of structure.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 2, 2011

It flies like a moth around its subject suggesting, sometimes playfully and occasionally ponderously, that we humans are as much like bugs as the creepy-crawlies themselves.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 1, 2011

What an original and distinctive film this is.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 30, 2011

No, not a Toho creature feature, but a diverting, slightly meandering, mini- DV-shot documentary on the Japanese love for insects.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 28, 2011

There's a hypnotic quality to its flow of images, allowing the viewer to see the insect world anew.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 27, 2011

An oddball documentary that strives to capture the essence of an entire culture through one preoccupation: insects.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 16, 2010

Creepy, crawly and profound, this thought-provoking eco-doc wows with breathtaking imagery.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 16, 2010

Beetle Queen does a wonderful job of showing the connection between things like Zen gardens, bonsai trees and the love of watching insects move in a small habitat.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 8, 2010

A parade of loosely, lyrically related scenes and images imbues the film with a wonder worthy of its subjects.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 6, 2010

This lyrical, meditative effort about the Japanese obsession for bugs of all kinds examines the subject from a deeply philosophical, historical and sociological perspective.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

Quietly spellbinding.

| Jul 6, 2010

A gentle docu-tribute to Japan's age-old connection to the insect world, a meditative piece that is by turns hypnotically beautiful and painfully slow.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 6, 2010

Oreck gives us some marvelous close-ups of scampering beetles and butterflies emerging from their pupae, but the focus here is primarily on people.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 4, 2010