Orson Welles goes full Godard...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 25, 2023

In F for Fake, the creation of illusion completely overtakes the craving for power. Hence the exceptional euphoria generated by the film.

| May 4, 2022

Did Welles write those marvelous lines about reality himself? He must have.

| Nov 29, 2018

F For Fake is minor Welles, the master idly tuning his instrument while the concert seems never to start again. But it's engaging and fun, and it's astonishing how easily Welles spins a movie out of next to nothing.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 11, 2015

I enjoyed every dubious minute of this bit of hanky-panky.

| Oct 11, 2015

The result is a curious, unsatisfactory pastiche of documentary tidbits acquired from Reichenbach and speculative filler supplied by Welles himself.

| Oct 11, 2015

The last film to be completed by Orson Welles is also probably his most challenging. A tricksy combination of documentary, discourse and sleight of hand, F for Fake is as elusive as it is playful.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 11, 2015

For all its nods, winks and witty asides, it's a richly personal work, picking over the questions every creative artist must eventually ask: Am I 'for real'? Does it matter? And what is all this work worth, anyway?

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 11, 2015

F for Fake is as grand, multitudinous, and original as Welles himself.

| Oct 11, 2015

A mischievous mash of mock-doc, magic show, lecture and comedy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 11, 2015

If Citizen Kane is testament to a young man's genius then F For Fake is testament to a veteran's rebellious spirit and wicked sense of humour.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 11, 2015

A buoyant, delightfully playful Orson Welles exposes the artifice of film in his 1975 head scratcher, F For Fake.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 11, 2015

Welles stretches his material and his legend just about as thin as possible in this tedious treatise on truth and illusion.

| Oct 11, 2015

Like every good magic show, there's much more here than first meets the eye.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 11, 2015

A bold, brazen movie that could only have been made because a top-notch talent decided to show off for a little bit.

| Original Score: 10/10 | May 17, 2015

It's a dynamic piece of filmmaking that doubles as a sleight-of-hand act.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 3, 2014

At times T for tedious and P for pretentious, the film remains essential viewing for admirers of the great cineaste and showman.

| Aug 26, 2012

It tells us that what we like is just fine and that the value is art is measured in something other than currency, though in this case the price of a cinema ticket will do nicely.

| Aug 24, 2012

A modest, throwaway trifle but still entertaining.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 23, 2012

F for Fake is a minor work in some ways, but there is fascination and poignancy in seeing Welles's elegant retreat into this hall of mirrors.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2012