... one of the few films that capture the mixture of the mundane and the extraordinary that go into the making of even the most low-key film...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 29, 2024

The disastrous production is Assayas’ way of self-reflection to what France’s film history has become...

| Mar 6, 2023

While films-within-films can be a worn-out trope, Irma Vep is a delightfully frenetic movie that takes its cues from jumpy, behind-the-scenes documentaries.

| Feb 2, 2022

However messy, conflicted, and cracked Irma Vep may be, it stands as a sometimes profound and always engaging portrait of film production on the edge.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 19, 2021

A must for fans of films about films.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 14, 2021

... Irma Vep appears to lambast those who favor safety, refusing to reimagine and reinvigorate, while also poking at those who apprise film in a binary perspective: either solely for the inteligencia or solely for the general public.

| Apr 26, 2021

Irma Vep is a magnificently varied film, integrating film footage, press interviews, gossip, and film's hurry-up-and-wait production schedule. Cheung in particular does a masterful job playing herself, at once transparent and opaque.

| Jan 11, 2021

An exhilarating film that happens to be about moviemaking itself, Olivier Assayas's sinuous, kinetic, waggish Irma Vep is an oblique, supremely enjoyable course in movie history.

| Oct 9, 2020

A funny and fascinatingly open-ended look at the state of the art, Irma Vep is well worth a look.

| Jun 16, 2020

If you're going to poke fun at the film industry, you might as well go for broke.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 16, 2020

I really enjoyed "Irma Vep." I will, however, be the first to admit that it's not for everybody.

| Jun 16, 2020

Though Irma Vep may be best appreciated by movieheads, it's hardly just an homage. By its shrieking avant-garde climax, it's more like a statement on how history, even filmed history, can fragment and dissolve into oblivion.

| Oct 25, 2019

Irma Vep is undeniably a complex and thought provoking work - but compared to the comparatively human films Assayas has made recently, it can't help but feel less rewarding as a result.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 12, 2018

Light, playful, and self-reflexive, Assayas' film is a mi or work but it's enjoyable and boasts a graceful performance from Maggie Cheung.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 1, 2011

The post-modern compulsions on display here may bring movies together, but they also keep people apart.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 7, 2009

A wonderful tribute to filmmaking that could only be made in France, it has delightful performances and a low-budget style -- like the film it parodies -- which work beautifully.

| Mar 3, 2008

Irma Vep's director, Olivier Assayas, evinces a love of the process that's nearly as palpable as Truffaut's.

| Mar 3, 2008

Slender but appealing.

| Mar 3, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 21, 2008

A delightfully nonchalant movie, complete with some nice satirical barbs aimed at contemporary French film culture, and fine performances throughout.

| Jun 24, 2006