There is something pretty special about watching this family experience the subject of death together. Death doesn’t have to be a lonely, sad process; it can be one of joy, double fudge chocolate cake, and spending as much time as you can...

| Apr 4, 2024

In what is easily the best documentary of 2020, Kirsten Johnson is able to approach a subject matter such as the inevitable death of her father, Dick Johnson, and have fun...

| Mar 1, 2024

Johnson brilliantly arranges and organizes the vignettes that account for her unique 'living obituary.'

| Feb 7, 2024

It is the grieving process before the actual grief begins knowing the end is near for the ritual character in his 80s, and it becomes a brilliant, therapeutic form of expecting the end of life as we know of it to be with our loved ones.

| Mar 6, 2023

I am, nonetheless, baffled, in a non-hostile way—what I was supposed to feel very rarely actually happened...

| Dec 1, 2022

“Dick Johnson is Dead” takes an honest look at the inevitability of death, coping with loss, and making the most of the time we have with those we love.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 20, 2022

Undoubtedly, this exploration of a family coming to terms with impending loss is both riveting and agonizing.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 5, 2022

Johnson is a documentary filmmaker of the highest order, and good on her for being so willing to be so revealing with her father's story, sparked by unparalleled creativity and boldness. Long live Dick Johnson!

| Mar 11, 2022

Simultaneously poignant and twisted, sweet and morbid, it tackles the taboo topics of aging and senility and death with a rare combination of grace and sick humor that has every reason not to workbut does.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 3, 2022

Dick Johnson Is Dead moves into the realm of autofiction, playing with ideas of truth in storytelling in order to paint a more honest picture of preemptive grief, the feeling so many experience when they think of their parents passing.

| Original Score: A | Feb 28, 2022

Kirsten Johnson's inventive docufiction project gets a sturdy transfer and some perceptive extras courtesy of the Criterion Collection.

| Feb 9, 2022

The film's looming grief is compounded by the nature of her father. Dick Johnson is a remarkably funny human being. Funny, buoyant, thoughtful...

| Nov 8, 2021

The emotional honesty of this film is by turns elating and heartbreaking, with Kirsten not scared to let her feelings show on camera alongside those of her dad.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 15, 2021

Created with an artist's insistence that realization of a vision justifies what some might call exploitation...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 24, 2021

Even the crew loves [Dick Johnson], and I think the audience will too.

| Original Score: A- | Feb 17, 2021

A true privilege to witness. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 16, 2021

Rather than positing better ways of processing death, this film celebrates our inability to do so: inventive as we are, we are no match for it.

| Feb 7, 2021

I don't know if I've ever seen anything like it.

| Feb 7, 2021

For those who have watched loved ones fight a losing battle with Alzheimer's, the movie might seem unappealing, but Johnson's deeply compassionate, even hopeful tone could be a balm for her fellow grievers.

| Feb 7, 2021

Every good parent deserves to be celebrated the way that Kirsten Johnson honors her dad in Dick Johnson is Dead. His condition may be sad, but the film gives many more opportunities to smile and appreciate him than it does making you cry.

| Feb 5, 2021